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Mar 10 1926 















RUSSELL H. CONWELL 
AND HIS WORK 





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Authorised 4 hs 


RUSSELL H. CONWELL 
AND HIS WORK 







ONE MAN’S INTERPRETATION OF LIFE 





By / 
AGNES RUSH ‘BURR 






WITH DOCTOR CONWELL’S FAMOUS LECTURE 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


Blustrated 


PHILADELPHIA 
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1926, by 
THE JOHN C. WINSTON Co. 


Copyright, 1917, 1923, by 
THe JoHN C. WINSTON Co. 


PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 


THE Baprist TEMPLE 
PHILADELPHIA, PAe 


August 21, 1923. 
Gentlemen: 

In the preparation of this biography 
Miss Burr has had the advantage of intimate 
acquaintance with me and my work for many 
years. I have given her full access to every 
kind of information that I possess, and 
have talked with her freely as to the aims 
and purposes I had in view. I have repeated 
to her conversations which I have had with 
representative men whom I have met in my 
travels both in this country and in Europe. 

The estimate which Miss Burr has placed 
upon me and my work is of course entirely 
her own. She has written with the eyes and 
heart of a friend, and that must color more 
or less the account in my favor. 

While of course I cannot accept respon= 
sibility for the opinions of the author, I 
believe that her narrative of the facts of 
my life is correct and it goes forth with my 
entire approval. 


Fraternally yours, 


[fecetell Mbortuehl- 


To The John C. Winston Company 
Philadelphia 







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1 


FOREWORD 


HE biggest problem that confronts a man is 
life. It includes all problems. ‘To find a sat- 


isfactory solution is every man’s earnest desire 
and persistent quest. 

How others have solved the problem is often enlight- 
ening. Particularly do the records of those whose lives 
have been greatly useful to the world have much in 
them of help, especially when they began life with none 
of the aids considered necessary to achievement, yet 
have achieved. 

Such is the career of Russel H. Conwell. He started 
life as a penniless boy on a rocky New England farm. 
He had neither money nor influence to help toward 
success. Yet he achieved success in great measure— 
a success that ranks higher than the gaining of wealth 
or fame, though these have been won—in that its finest 
flower is great service to his fellowmen. 

The road he hewed for himself may prove both inter- 
esting and helpful to trace. This record of it is offered 
with the hope that the sign-posts along the way may 
be of use to others in faring toward their goal. 

This book was revised by the author and approved 
by Doctor Conwell a few months before his death. A 
new and final chapter tells of his last days on earth 
and gathers a few tributes to his memory. 

(9) 





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CHAPTER * 


ib 


Il. 


III. 


IV. 


VI. 


VIL. 


VIIT. 


CONTENTS 


Tue Story OF THE SWORD. 


Doctor Conwell’s Favorite Occupation. He Tells 
the Cause of His Unceasing Work............... 


THe Man He Grew To BE. 


His Life Harvest. His Wide Activities—His 
Many Charities—His Aims in Life............... 


Doctor CONWELL’S ANCESTRY. 


The Conwell Family Tree. Doctor Conwell Tells 
Hig Views -om ANCeStry sac. ters ie tes haere ete 


Toe  CoNnwEeELL Homes WITHOUT AND 
WITHIN 


Doctor Conwell Describes the Daily Life of His 
Boyhood. The Mental and Spiritual Atmosphere 
Of the Homes icc. ics Late ae eee eee es se fory a Ss 


THe FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT. 


Doctor Conwell Gives Personal Recollections of 
John Brown, Frederick Douglas, William Cullen 
Bryant and Other Distinguished People Who 
Influenced Him in His Boyhood................. 


EARLY YEARS. 


Formative Influences of Nature. Traits Developed 
by the Hard Work of the Farm. The Literature 
of the Home and Its Influence upon His Life.... 


THE RUNAWAY. 


Doctor Conwell Tells of His First Escapade. Run- 
ning Away a Second Time and Going to Europe. . 


ScHooL Days. 


Doctor Conwell Describes His Early School Days. 
He Shows How One can Get a Practical and 
Useful Education Right at Home................ 


(11) 


PAGE 


26 


29 


32 


45 


59 


67 


12 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


IX. Tue Puace or Music in EDUCATION. 


cle 


XI. 


XIII. 


XIV. 


XV. 


Doctor Conwell Tells the Value of Music in a 
Child’s Education and How He was Able to 
Secure It. The Benefit It Became to His Life. 
He Makes Some Suggestions for Musical Programs 


Scuoot Days AT WILBRAHAM. 


Earning the Money to Go. Working His Way 
Through. His Studies. Doctor Conwell Describes 
His First Public Debate There, Its Ignominious 
Failure and‘the Value of Debating Societies. His 
Work as a Book Canvasser...........2022ee200- 


CoLLEGE Days AT YALE. 


His Struggle to Get Through College. The 
Humiliation of those Days. A Dip into Atheism 


Tur OUTBREAK OF THE WAR. 


A Visit to New York. Doctor Conwell Gives His 
First Impressions of Henry Ward Beecher and 
Lincoln. Speeches for Enlistment............... 


GoInc TO WAR. 


Enlisting. Raising Troops. His Election as 
Captain and Presentation of Sword. Doctor 
Conwell’s Letter Home Describing His First 
Fingagement.... 2 meme ee ele, online meee en ee 


THE SECOND ENLISTMENT. 


Captain of Company D. Accompanied by John 
Ring. In Charge of Newport Barracks. Attack 
of Pickett’s Corps. Defeat of Conwell’s Men. 
Death of John Ring. Appointment on General 
McPherson’s Staff. Wounded at Kenesaw Moun- 
tain. | Conversion an eens. a ee ee 


New VENTURES. 


Admitted to the Bar. Marriage. Removal West. 
Life in Minneapolis. Mrs. Conwell’s Progressive 
Editorial as to Woman’s Place and Interests. 
Loss of Home and Illness. Immigration Agent 
to Germany. Given up to Die in Paris. Health 
Restored. Reporter on Boston Traveller. Trip 
Around World as Correspondent...........0.0: 


PAGE 


83 


90 


101 


106 


112 


125 


CONTENTS 13 


CHAPTER PAGE 
XVI. Busy Days 1n Boston. 


Doctor Conwell Tells about Meeting Tennyson, 
Gladstone, Garibaldi, Henry Ward Beecher, 
Whittier, and Many Other Famous People. His 
Work as a Lawyer. Free Legal Advice to the 
Poor. The Boston Young Men’s Congress. His 
Tremont Temple Sunday-school Class........... 151 


XVII. His Entry into THE MINISTRY. 


The Death of Mrs. Conwell. Increasing Interest 
in Religious Work. Doctor Conwell’s Second 
Marriage. The Lexington Church. His Decision 
CENCE Be WAITSUL VC te faerie te een eat 166 


XVIII. His First Pasrorate. 


Doctor Conwell Tells Why He did not Earlier 
Enter the Ministry. His Advice upon Choosing a 
Life-Work. The Condition of the Church at 
Lexington. The First Service. Building a New 
Church. His First Church Fair. The Activities 
and Growth of the Lexington Church. His Help 
in Developing Lexington. His Ordination. The 
Cali to Philadelphia}: tanrac setae wate wlersi dave ek ya 170 


XIX. THe Earty Days oF THE PHILADELPHIA 
PASTORATE. 

The Beginning of Grace Baptist Church. A 

Letter Describing a Church Service. John Wana- 


maker’s Tribute to Doctor Conwell’s ‘‘ Different”’ 
Methods. The Growth of the Church........... 185 


XX. A Cuytup’s LEGAcY. 


The Beginning of the Building Fund of The Baptist 
1203) 6) [a ae PEN OF roe Vl ho, ROL AGI E anda aang Cot 197 


XXI. Burupinc THe TEMPLE. 


How a Poor Congregation Built One of the Finest 
Church Edifices in the Country. Doctor Conwell’s 
Ideas as to What a Church Edifice Should be Like. 
His Own Plans for The Temple. His Warnings 
Against the Perils of Success..........+.0005 ek OD 


14 


CHAPTER 


XXII. 


XXIII. 


XXIV. 


AN» 


ROAV AG 


XXVIT. 


XXVIII. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


How Tur TEMPLE WORKS. 


Doctor Conwell Discusses the Church Work and 
Tells the Underlying Principles which He Believes 
should Govern. The Various Organizations. The 
Temple Fairs and their Purpose. Doctor Conwell 
Gives His Ideas of a Church Fair. The Various 
Entertainments. How they are Planned and 
Managed oii... «!s + -led eis ale oho apa et tena lad eae 


Tur Business MANAGEMENT. 


Doctor Conwell Tells how the Business Affairs of 
The Temple are Conducted. The System of 
Handling the Church Finances.................. 


THe Music or THE TEMPLE. 


The Chorus of The Temple and Its Organization 
and First Leader, Professor David D. Wood. 
Professor Wood’s Views on Choir Organization 
and Work. ‘The Business Management of The 
Temple Chorus. The Special Organ............. 


TEMPLE SERVICES. 


The Sunday Routine. The Children’s Church. 
The Sunday-school and Sunday Prayer-Meetings. 
Baptismal Services. The Dedication of Infants. 
Special Services. Watch Meeting............... 


TEMPLE PRAYER-MEETINGS. 


Doctor Conwell Tells the Purpose a Prayer- 
Meeting Serves. The Various Prayer-Meetings 
of The Temple. The Method of Conducting Them 


How TrempitE UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS 
LIFE. 


The Reason Instruction at Temple University 
Means More than in Many Institutions. Doctor 
Conwell Tells How it Came to Be. Rev. Forest 
Dager Shows the Need of It 


oo 6 Om 66) 0 <@ © *) C18 6 & se eee Be 


A UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE. 


Obtaining the Charter. Laying the Corner-Stone. 


The Ultimate Development that is Hoped will 
Come 


HOU 8 Oo 610. FT OO C6 es Siete ane Saere 6 Oe ee 86 Le 6, ela ie heehee 


227 


233 


243 


255 


274 


CHAPTER 


XXIX. 


XXXI. 


XXXII. 


XXXITI. 


XXXIV. 


XXXY. 


CONTENTS 


15 


PAGE 


A Democratic INSTITUTION. 
What the Opportunities it Offers Mean. Its 
Adaptable Curriculum. Its Willingness to Meet 
Needs. The Various Departments. Many Unique 


Special Courses. Its Small Tuition Fees........ 2 


HELPING THE Sick Poor. 


The Samaritan, Garretson, and Greatheart Hos- 
pitals. Doctor Conwell Tells How the Samaritan 
Hospital Started. He Gives His Ideas of True 
Charity. The Unique Beginning of Garretson 
Hospital. The Work it Does at Present..,,..... 


SPREADING VISIONS. 


How the Lecture ‘‘Acres of Diamonds” has 
Brought Fuller Life to Many. How it Helped a 
Salesman. How it has Built up Towns. Its 
Voice Within Prison Walls. The Message it 
hast for? Al, ee Fee en (sre ay Anon Camm an ar ET EPAN 


Tue History or ‘‘AcRES oF DIAMONDS.”’ 


The First Time ‘Acres of Diamonds” was 
Delivered. Its Present Great Popularity. What 
it has Earned. The Number of Students Helped. 
Doctor Conwell Tells How He Came to Give the 
Proceeds of the Lecture to Poor Students. Inci- 
dents of Becture Trips. ge. semen tae ss acre aretts 


Ten MILLION HEARERS. 


Unique Lecturing Places. Lecture Topics. Doc- 
tor Conwell Discusses Audiences. ‘Tells How to 
Keep the Voice in Good Condition. Mentions 
the Best Ways to Study for Public Speaking and 
Speaks of His Early Efforts. What Others Say 
of His Lectures. His Chautauqua Work and 
what He Thinks of the Chautauqua Movement. 


Firry YEARS ON THE AMERICAN PLATFORM. 


Doctor Conwell Discusses Lecturing as a Career 
and Gives Reminiscences from His Many Years’ 
EXPCPIEN CO We. of od ok See ee ee oe canes 


Doctor CoNWELL AS A WRITER. 


His Biographical Work. Lives of the Presidents. 
How He Wrote His Successful Life of Spurgeon. 
Books that Have Helped Him. His Favorite 
Autnors and Charactersemansas \iieineie retains s8 


294 


307 


318 


331 


16 CONTENTS 
CHAPTER PAGE 


XXXVI. MARGINALIA. 


A Favorite Motto. Home Life. Family Bereave- 
ment, (Public Honorsi cae tee oes ere 347 


XXXVII. Toe Messace or A LIFE. 


The Secret of Doctor Conwell’s Success. He 
Emphasizes the Power of Right Thinking and 
Tells How to Use It Intelligently. The Develop- 
ment of Personality—a Process of Education. 
Doctor Conwell’s Search for Knowledge and How 
He Found It. What True Living Is. In Tune 
with the Infinite. Doctor Conwell’s Life—a 


Mighty Inspiration to Everybody............... 352 
XX XVIII. “Open THE GATES OF THE TEMPLE’’...... 355 
APPENDIX 

Doctor CoNWELL’s ViEW oF A MENACE TO OUR 
DEMOCRACY 20 ee eee ee 363 
“THe BATTLEFIELDS OF THE REBELLION’’............ 876 
Warrrinr’s Porm, ‘“MEMOREBStAu one ee 388 
OUTLINE OF HARLY SERMONS See. ee ee 391 
SERVICE USED IN THE DEDICATION OF INFANTS....... 399 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
‘ACRES OF .DIAMONDS”’ je. Sees ee een A405 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


RUSSULL YI) GONWELLY DAD eee ke, Frontispiece 

PAGE 
BVA TENE COON WEL Larch cit tr ital eric ithe Au ualen tonsil na 2 19 
THE BIRTHPLACE OF RussELL H. CoNWELu.......... 34 
BVLEHAIND A) COOM WIRED: «yh tek te Ft Led Rome Ae UME Ge, 51 
RussELL H. CONWELL AT THE AGE OF TWELVE...... 66 
Tue Oup Door-sTEp, WILBRAHAM ACADEMY......... 99 
THE Campus, WILBRAHAM ACADEMY................ 99 
RusseLL H. CoNWELL WHEN ELECTED CAPTAIN...... 114 
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL CONWELL..........-0-e+000-- 137 
NIRS JENNIE, CON WELDS. 0g: eRe alepmenen: fecaiity MN, 140 


Tue First “Cuurch Home” or Grace Baptist 
GEER E Eh latent oo: 5). 5's Noll aa SCP ae DCS 185 
Russevt H. Conwet WHEN He Enterep THe Ministry 188 
Ree BA PTISTACERMPLR 0... ea ae Mm eh anne ek Ag 
BEORESSORUWAVID 10:)(WOODs. Sau eee rots & sae eee 226 


New Buvitpinaes THAT WILL COMPLETE TEMPLE 


NRA RETUNY Mees ces oe Sk ae a re eater 275 
THE SAMARITAN HOSPITAL......... A OB AA ASS REA ol) eb ue) 
WIRES OARAH DM (CONWELL. 22 eee: EES Nee He ea 349 


(17) 








MARTIN CONWELL 


FATHER OF RussELL H. CONWELL 


CGrA Pi hiheot 
Tue Story oF THE SworpD 


Doctor Conwell’s Favorite Occupation. He Tells 
the Cause of His Unceasing Work. 


USSELL H. CONWELL was once asked, ‘‘ What 
R is your favorite occupation?”’ 
“Tiving,’ was the prompt and hearty re- 
joinder. 

His career proves his words. 

No one could meet him, feel his hearty handclasp, 
hear his deep, vibrant voice, or see his cordial smile, 
without knowing that he enjoyed living. 

No one could come in touch with his work—the big 
church, with its membership of more than three thou- 
sand; the great university with a roll call since it 
started running into the hundred thousands; the hos- 
pitals, with their thousands of patients annually; his 
lecture trips from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the 
course of which he spoke to hundreds of thousands of 
people; his radio lectures in which he spoke to thou- 
sands more—without realizing that he gave to this 
occupation of living all of his time and energy. He 
threw himself wholly into it. 

But, though his pleasure in living and working was 
keen, he had still another and greater incentive for his 
wealth of achievement. 

Over Doctor Conwell’s bed, in his Philadelphia home, 
hangs a sword. Back of this sword is a story. It is 
the tragedy of this story that is the chief cause of the 
unceasing activity which filled his days. He was aman 
who would undoubtedly have accomplished much with 

(19) 


20 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


his life. But this disaster made it imperative that he 
do so. 

He was induced sometimes to tell the story of the 
sword. He related it once to a little group of friends 
in his home. As they were admiring its beautiful, 
gold-chased scabbard, his face saddened. He was 
silent for a moment. ‘Then, in the simple, direct and 
unaffected way characteristic of him, he told what 
this sword meant to his life. 

“During the Civil War,’ he said, “when I re- 
enlisted at Readville, Massachusetts, a boy came to 
me who wanted to go to the war with me. His father 
had consented. His mother was dead. 

“T said to him, ‘John, you should not go to war. 
You will be killed.’ I tried to frighten him, but he 
was determined to go. I told him then that he could 
not go. But his father insisted, and I finally permitted 
him to go with me. 

“T went to war from Yale College. I had been 
there a little over a year and naturally knew every- 
thing that anybody could possibly know. I remem- 
ber coming home the previous vacation and while 
digging potatoes my devout Methodist father said 
to me, ‘My son, I notice that you do not go to church.’ 
I said, ‘No, father. And I am not going to church any 
more. I don’t believe the Bible anyhow.’ ‘My son,’ 
he continued, ‘are you getting away from your father’s 
God; from your mother’s God?’ ‘No, father,’ I 
replied, ‘you ought to consider that I have been to 
college and know all these things. You have never 
been to college and you are not expected to know. 
I am an agnostic. I have learned that I don’t know 
anything about religion.’ 

‘““My father was broken-hearted. He said to me, 
‘Don’t go to school any more. I would rather you 


THE STORY OF THE SWORD 21 


would hold on to the love of God than go to school 
and learn everything. My son, I would rather see 
your body going into the grave than to hear that you 
had joined the atheists and infidels.’ 

“‘T said, ‘I will have to tell you the truth. I have 
joined the free-thinkers’ club.’ 

“My classmates’ autograph books still bear the 
record with my name as ‘Atheist.2 I was known as 
a disbeliever in the Bible and I used everything I 
could find to prove that it was untrue. 

“But the first night that John Ring came into my 
tent, he took out his Bible and read it by the candle- 
light. I said, ‘John, you can’t do that in my tent. 
I don’t believe in it and everyone will laugh at me if 
I permit you to do that.’ The next night I found him 
reading it again and I said to the boy, ‘You can’t read 
that Bible in my tent!’ ‘Why,’ he said, ‘what is the 
matter, Captain? ‘This is my mother’s Bible and 
father told me to read it in memory of mother.’ I 
said, ‘You ought to remember your mother, but you 
can’t read that book in this tent.’ He answered with 
tears, ‘I love you, Captain, but you are a very wicked 
man.’ After that night John went into my orderly- 
sergeant’s tent to read his Bible. 

“One day, when I was called away on duty, there 
eame an attack upon our fort in North Carolina, below 
Newbern, at the Newport River. Pickett’s celebrated 
corps drove our men from the camp. My troops fled 
across the river and set the long trestle bridge on fire. 
When some had gotten across, John ran up to the 
orderly-sergeant there and said, ‘Where is the Cap- 
tain’s sword?’ He answered, ‘He has it on. Get 
out of the way.’ But John meant this gold-sheathed 
sword that was presented to me at Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts, when I first went to war. It always hung 


22 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


on the center-pole of my tent, and it was John’s especial 
delight to polish it and keep it bright. Fearful now 
that it had been left behind, he ran back across the 
bridge, in among the Confederate soldiers, into my 
tent and pulled down this gold-sheathed sword that 
I had promised, when it was presented to me, to give 
my life to preserve. 

“He managed to get about half-way back across the 
burning bridge when a Confederate captain saw him 
and did one of the noblest deeds of the war. He came 
out in full view and swung his white handkerchief. 
The fire on both sides ceased and the Confederate cap- 
tain shouted, ‘Tell the boy to Jump into the river! 
Jump on either side. We will save him!’ 

‘They shouted, but they could not make him hear. 
When he came near our end of the bridge his clothes 
were blazing high. He ran through the smoke and 
flung himself out on the end of the abutment of the 
bridge, and my sword fell from his hands to the bank 
of the river. ‘They rolled him into the water and washed 
out the fire, but he was insensible. 

“They put him on a gun carriage and took him down 
to the hospital at Beaufort. There he lay for three 
days. With the return of consciousness, one night, he 
asked the nurse, ‘Where am I? Where is the Cap- 
tain’s sword? Won’t you bring it in, so I can put 
my hand on it? Is the Captain coming to see me?’ 
The nurse told him that I was coming to see him soon. 
The next night he awoke and said, ‘ Hasn’t the Captain 
come yet? I want to give him the sword myself, for 
then he will know how much I love him.’ 

“‘A little later the surgeon came along and said, 
‘That boy isn’t going to live.’ He called the nurse 
and asked, ‘Are you a Christian woman?’ 

§ SEY Bee 


THE STORY OF THE SWORD 23 


“‘ «Then tell the boy he is going to die, for he won’t 
live till morning.’ 

“The nurse sat down beside him; took his hand and 
said, ‘John, you are going to see your mother.’ 

‘ano Dabs: 

“You are going to see your mother,’ she repeated. 

“Do you think I am going to die?’ he questioned. 

‘““*Yes,’ said the nurse. ‘I will have to tell you 
the truth. You will probably not live more than 
twenty-four hours. Do you want some one to pray 
with you?’ 

‘“‘He didn’t answer her question but put up his hands 
and began to move his lips in prayer. She sent for 
the chaplain but did not find him. A short time 
afterward John took hold of the sword and whispered, 
‘Will you tell the Captain that I saved his sword?’ 

“She answered, ‘Yes, I will tell him; but I hope 
he will be able to get here before you go.’ 

“He turned his face upward; peace came to his 
features and my John went into the Shining. When 
they sent me word that he was dead, no man can 
describe the horror that came into my soul. 

“Six months afterward I was left for dead on the 
field of battle at Kenesaw Mountain, in Georgia. 
I came to myself in the hospital tent and asked my 
nurse if I was living. 

‘‘She said, ‘Do you want something to eat?’ 

““ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I want the chaplain.’ 

‘She sent for him; he came and sat beside me and 
said, ‘What do you wish?’ 

““‘T want to be forgiven,’ I replied; ‘I want to find 
my Lord. I feel that I must. Will you pray for me?’ 

‘‘He made one of those formal prayers that we hear 
sometimes. It didn’t do me any good and I was 
angry. I said, ‘I want to be prayed out of my sins 
somehow or other.’ 


294 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


“He got cross and went out, but soon he came back 
and said, ‘I am sorry that I was impatient.’ 

“T told him that I wanted him to read the Bible to 
me; that I had disbelieved in it and now I wanted to 
believe in it. I told him about John Ring and how he 
had once read the fourteenth chapter of John. He 
read it, and then the twelfth chapter of Romans, but 
I couldn’t see anything then. I felt there was no 
help for me in the Bible. I told him so and he said, 
‘The only thing for you to do, Colonel, is to go to 
God yourself.’ 

“T said, ‘It looks as though I must. I don’t see 
that I am getting any help from you; but come in 
again.’ 

“Sometime during the night I felt a strange sense 
of dying—a fading, falling out of life—and I said, ‘I 
am going to my God if there is one; to the Saviour 
whom I have scoffed at and despised; going to meet’ 
John and his God.’ An awful sense of sinking came 
over me and I called upon the unknown God for for- 
giveness, and asked Him to reveal Himself to me if 
there was any revelation possible. <A little later I 
asked the nurse to read a prayer. A few minutes 
after that my heart was opened. I cannot describe 
it—no one can—that instinctive need for the love of 
God, and that warming of the heart which came to 
me. But the sense of final forgiveness seemed to fill 
my soul with lhght. 

“John Ring’s life and his adherence to what he 
believed to be right had its influence in leading me to 
God. His death made me feel a solemn obligation to 
repay the world for his loss. I keep hanging on the 
wall, over the head of my bed, the sword that John 
saved. Every morning, before I kneel to pray, I say, 
‘Lord, if Thou wilt help me today, I will do John 


THE STORY OF THE SWORD 25 


Ring’s work and my work.’ I have been trying to 
do two men’s work—John’s and my own—in order 
that when I go home to heaven I may say, ‘John, 
your life went out early but I did the best that I could 
to make up for it.’ If there is any special reason for 
the amount of work that I have done, it is this: I 
want to be able to say honestly each night, ‘I have 
done your work today, John, as well as my own.’ ” 


CHAPTER II 
Tur Man He Grew to Be 


His Life Harvest. His» Wide Actintes. His 
Many Charities. His Avms wn Lnfe. 


tragic death of John Ring and the vow taken 
then by the boy of nineteen to do two men’s 
work. 

How has the vow been kept? What is the fruitage 
of these years? Russell Conwell lived to pass the 
four-score mark. One might be justified in saying 
that his life-work came to its harvest. What, then, 
is this harvest? What does Russell Conwell represent 
in the eyes of his fellowmen, and what was he, when 
he had come to those years when one is supposed to 
rest from his labors? 

Until the very end, Russell Conwell was still a driv- 
ing forcee—a, resistless energy. He impressed at once 
with a sense of power and vitality. He was tall, broad- 
shouldered and deep-chested. His features were 
rugged and strong; his glance, penetrating but kindly. 
He was keen to see and quick to do. His vision was 
still toward the future. When a work to which he had 
put his hand was accomplished, he did not stop. He 
did the next thing—and he did it at once. 

Russell Conwell built up from almost nothing the 
largest Protestant Church in America, and baptized 

(26) 


ik: milestones of the years are many since the 


THE MAN HE GREW TO BE 27 


there almost ten thousand adults. Through the 
University which he founded, life has been broad- 
ened and enriched for men and women numbering 
into the hundred thousand who otherwise might not 
have had the opportunity for this greater measure of 
living. Through the hospitals which have grown out 
of his work, health and healing have been brought to 
the sick poor. His lectures have given material aid 
to thousands of poor students, and inspiration that has 
meant success and happiness to literally millions of 
hearers. 

Although he had established for working men and 
women a university that annually enrolls thousands 
of students, he still foresaw the possibilities of branch 
universities in every ward of Philadelphia, where those 
who earn their living can, when working hours are 
over, quickly reach classrooms near their homes. He 
kept pressing toward this goal. 

Through his close touch with educational matters 
and because of his own struggles as a boy to secure 
an education, Russell Conwell recently discerned in 
certain legislation an attempt to shut the poor boy 
out of the professions. He not only felt the injustice 
of this, but he saw what it would mean to the American 
people if not prevented. He immediately raised his 
voice in protest. Wherever he spoke he gave a stir- 
ring warning of this danger to democracy, with the 
result that newspapers and magazines took the matter 
up and the evil is likely to be scotched in its inception. 
(See Appendix, ‘‘ Peril to Democracy.’’) 

Russell Conwell stood ever for forwardness perhaps 
more than for anything else; for not resting content 
with what he had done, but for vigorously going on to 
do more. 

Doctor Conwell stood also for another thing. He 


23 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


was a penniless millionaire. He was a rich man with- 
out a bank account. He had little of what the world 
calls wealth. This was not because of inability to earn. 
He could have been many times a millionaire had he 
been so inclined. Yet, without money, he represents 
success—a success surely as great as that to which any 
millionaire can point. 

Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, pastor of Henry Ward 
Beecher’s old church in Brooklyn, accounts Doctor 
Conwell among the world’s foremost one hundred men. 
In a contest in a national magazine, his name was 
selected for the Hall of Fame, and the people of Penn- 
sylvania voted him as one of its three most distinguished 
citizens. In 1923, he was given the Philadelphia award 
founded by Edward W. Bok in 1921, one of the highest 
honors that could come to him as a citizen of Phila- 
delphia. Thus stood Doctor Conwell in the public 
eye. Though sincerely appreciative of these worldly 
honors they occupied very little of his attention. 

Russell Conwell was concerned chiefly with the work 
he felt he must do as long as he lived. His one desire 
was, aS a writer has expressed it, ‘‘to put his ideals 
over.” His sincere query to himself always was, ‘‘ Did 
my message drive home? Is some one benefited by 
what I have said or done today?’”’ And this is not said 
egotistically. He believed that every one is in this life 
for a purpose; that it is his duty to find that purpose 
and fulfil it. One might say, both in what Doctor 
Conwell achieved in the past and in what he was still 
desirous of achieving, that he represented full living; 
for he was never niggardly of life, either through a 
desire to hoard it for himself, or through fear of drain- 
ing its powers too soon. 


CHAPTER III 
Doctor CoNWELL’s ANCESTRY 


The Conwell Family Tree. Doctor Conwell Tells 
His Views on Ancestry. 


His father was Martin Conwell, a Massachusetts 

farmer—a tall, vigorous man, “always in a 

hurry,’ says Doctor Conwell, in recollecting 
him. Many say that Doctor Conwell resembled his 
father. 

His mother was Miranda Wickham. She came of a 
family from the central part of New York State. She 
was slender, with a thin, earnest face and large blue 
eyes, was quiet and loving; a great reader; a devoted 
student of the Bible, and a tireless worker. ‘‘She 
seems to have been an inexhaustible person,’ Doctor 
Conwell says, in speaking of her, ‘‘She never seemed 
to get tired. I remember her as always working, 
working, working.” 

Martin Conwell’s father was a Southerner—Martin 
Conwell, of Baltimore. The injection of the hot- 
blooded, impulsive, Southern temperament into this 
New England family 1s said by many who knew them 
to have left its traces upon them. 

The members of this family were demonstrative 
and expressed their feelings—especially their affec- 
tions—with less reserve than the usual New Englander. 
The imaginative faculty was strongly developed, and 
it was not checked or restrained. In many qualities 
of the heart and mind, they exhibited the warmth 

, (29) 


B: birth Russell Conwell was a New Englander. 


30 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


and impulsiveness of the South rather than the cold 
restraint of the North. 

Behind Martin Conwell of Baltimore stretched a 
long line of ancestors reaching, so far as records and 
family traditions go, to the days of William the Con- 
queror of England. They were men who did things. 
One of them—John Conwell—fought for the preserva- 
tion of the Anglo-Saxon tongue in England when there 
was danger of its being swept away by the Norman 
French. The fact that they were among the first to 
seek homes in a new land shows their mettle. They 
were of the kind to whom the adventure of the under- 
taking and the hope of greater liberty made an instant 
appeal. 

The mother’s family were of the scholarly, less 
adventurous, sort. Some were school teachers and 
professors, and one was quite an authority on certain 
branches of zoology, especially sea-shells. Through 
her came strongly the thought of study; of books; 
of education and its value; of what the members of 
her family had done in these lines and what it meant 
to them. 

Thus, in the family into which Russell Conwell 
was born, were blended the practical, shrewd New 
England character; the impulsive, romantic, imagina- 
tive Southern temperament, the eager quest of adven- 
ture and zest of the pioneer, and the thirst for know]l- 
edge of the scholar. Whether the generations that 
have gone have any direct effect upon those that come 
after is a much-discussed question today. In regard 
to ancestry, Doctor Conwell, in his biography of 
James A. Garfield, has this to say: 

‘“Having no faith in the theory that the men of today 
are but the aggregation of experiences and develop- 
ment in the past, and giving but little credit to the 


DOCTOR CONWELL’S ANCESTRY 31 


aristocratic claim that ancestry makes the nobleman, 
we give the line of the Garfield family for the benefit 
of such as may deem it important. 

“The tendency of the records is to show that all 
the individuals of the different races are born into the 
world with very similar characteristics and with much 
greater equality in mental endowments than aristocracy 
is willing to admit. It shows, too, that it is not what 
our fathers were so much as what we make ourselves 
that determines our right to nobility or praise. Ances- 
try and health wield a perceptible and sometimes a 
strong influence; but the capital we are born with may 
be increased a hundredfold by our own exertion. It is 
this increase which constitutes the noblest claim to 
human greatness.” 


CHAPTER IV 
THe CoNWELL Home WitTHouT AND WITHIN 


Doctor Conwell Describes the Daily Life of His Boy- 
hood. The Mental and Spiritual Atmosphere of the 
Home. 


made for themselves, and in which Russell H. 
Conwell was born, February 15, 1848, was the 
home of a poor New England farmer of the 
middle of the last century. It was situated in the 
Hampshire Highlands of the Berkshire Hills of Western 
Massachusetts, near the town of South Worthington. 

The house was small, consisting of two rooms and 
a lean-to downstairs, and an attic upstairs. It stood 
on ground that sloped upward from one of the little 
flat, grassy meadows found so frequently in the Berk- 
shires. Through this meadow flashed a mountain 
stream, and encircling it were hills and woods. Through 
a gap in these hills could be seen, far in the distance, 
Mount Tom. 

It was a beautiful location. The swift stream that 
flowed in front of the house; the vast woods that 
enclosed the little home; and the ranges of mountains 
that rose against the horizon made a scene of loveli- 
ness that delighted the gaze wherever it rested. And 
this beauty was ever changing. Spring made the 
hills a mist of delicate colors. Summer transformed 
them into a riotous sea of billowing foliage. Autumn 
draped them with a glorious tapestry of red and gold 
and orange; and winter changed them into a sparkling 
fairyland of ice and snow. 

(32) 


[= home that Martin and Miranda Conwell 


THE CONWELL HOME 33 


Nature had lavished beauty on this spot; but she 
had given little else. The farm was rocky and unpro- 
ductive. Martin Conwell toiled early and late to 
wrest from it a living. Even then he had to work 
at other tasks to eke out the family income. He 
labored as a stonemason, and in the little lean-to of 
the house he opened a store. 

The house inside was sparsely furnished, and to the 
casual observer it was a home of poverty. Miranda 
Conwell worked as hard as her husband and, in addi- 
tion to her household duties of caring for a family 
of five, she also took in sewing. There were two 
children besides Russell: a brother, Charles, older, and 
a sister, Harriet, younger. Of this home-life Doctor 
Conwell says: 

“Tt is a difficult matter for me to realize that any 
person should now care what was done in those years 
so long gone by. ‘That little cottage in the Hamp- 
shire Highlands of the Berkshire Hills had but three 
rooms and a woodshed; it was very rudely finished 
and poorly furnished. As I look upon it now, it 
seems to have been almost a hovel in its construction, 
being only one story and a half high and about thirty 
feet square. The half story under the roof was not 
finished, except that the floor was of rough plank, and 
it was reached by a ruce stairway of slabs from the 
sawmill. 

“The home life in my father’s house was very plain 
and simple in the extreme. I had one brother, older 
than myself, and one sister, younger than myself; 
consequently there were five in our family. 

“‘Qur food consisted chiefly of Indian pudding and 
baked potatoes. Those luxuries loom high on the 
horizon of time, and the sweetness of their joys are 
engraved in stone upon the hillside of my memory. 


34 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


“My father always began the day at sunrise, and 
we worked an hour or two before breakfast. After 
our simple repast, which was sometimes varied by 
salt pork and cider-apple sauce, my father always 
read the Bible and led in the family prayers. He 
often commented upon the Scriptures when the read- 
ing brought out any special lesson for the good of the 
children. And there—kneeling by the old fireplace— 
he gave to his children the foundations of morality, 
industry and religion, which saved them from many 
a fall in after years and instinctively caused them to 
avoid bad company. 

‘‘My mother was always engaged in some occupa- 
tion having for its end the payment of the mortgage 
on the farm. ‘That mortgage was the great affliction 
of our family; its ghost appeared on every occasion 
and it was often the topic of my father’s prayer. He 
was a strong believer in the duty of every prayerful 
Christian to answer his own prayers when he could 
do so; and he taught his children to believe that it 
was wrong to ask the Lord to do anything for them 
which they could do for themselves. ‘To him prayer 
was work and man’s extremity was the Lord’s oppor- 
tunity. He once said that neither God nor man is 
going to push the team of a man who is lying beside 
the road smoking. J remember that he told us, when 
we were shingling the barn, that we should remember, 
‘If the world sees a man coming very fast, every one 
will get out of the way for him and will turn in and 
push as he goes by.’ 

‘“My father and mother were both very plain per- 
sons brought up in the ranks of the hard-working 
poor of the New England hills) They had none of 
the luxuries of life and were very sparsely supplied 
with the necessities. When I look down upon this 








THE BIRTHPLACE OF RUSSELL H. CONWELL 


Russet, H. ConweLt was Born NEAR SoutH WoRTHINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS, FEBRUARY 15, 1843 





THE CONWELL HOME 35 


old home-place now from Eagle’s Nest Rock at the 
top of the mountain, I cannot realize that lawns, fields, 
gardens and the newly-made lake are in the same 
locality as that old cottage with its little barn and 
woodshed and pig-pen. Mark Twain very readily 
and helpfully said, ‘The fault with old men’s mem- 
ories is that they remember so many things that ain’t 
so;’ and I do find it a difficult thing to appreciate the 
extreme poverty in which the farmers lived in New 
England in the days when I was born. 

“The newly-cleared mountain sides, the projecting 
ledges, the boulders and innumerable small stones 
which made it almost impossible to plow any field, 
did somehow return to the cultivators enough to enable 
them to sustain life. Our little cellar was only twelve 
feet square and yet, as I recall my childhood dreams, 
it was a large dark cavern wherein it was dangerous 
to travel in the dark from the foot of the stairway to 
the cider barrel or potato bin. ‘The snow drifted so 
deep in the winter that we sometimes could tunnel 
under the drifts between the kitchen door and the 
barn—a distance of about twenty yards. 

‘‘In the days of our greatest prosperity we had three 
cows, a horse and two pigs. My father bought the 
farm the year he was married, agreeing to pay $1,200 
for the three hundred and fifty acres, mostly rocks; and 
it took him twelve years of hard work, strict economy 
and privation to pay off the mortgage. My mother 
used to work late every evening on suspenders or 
boys’ ready-made clothing, when she was not engaged 
in spinning wool for the old loom in the attic. 

“Our cooking was done at a large fireplace and the 
kettles hung on an iron crane. ‘There comes to me 
now a strong appetite when I think what sweet odors 
came from those kettles as mother swung them out 


3 


36 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


from over the fireplace to test their contents with a 
long wooden fork. 

‘My mother made the cloth for our clothes, cut 
out the garments and sewed them with her own fingers 
until my sister was old enough to help. I well remember 
the time my father persuaded mother to take a little 
money out of the old pewter tea-pot in the spare room 
and go to the woolen factory in the town of Chester 
Village and buy enough cloth to make my brother 
and me each a pair of trousers. That was a proud day 
for us when we made our appearance in school in all 
that finery and it awakened as much pain as joy— 
as much jealousy as love. JI remember a pug-nosed 
girl on the seat in front of me who turned round, 
curled her lips and stuck out her tongue, thus deliver- 
ing a volley of shrapnel and gas-laden bombs, which 
was worse to bear than the shot and shell of Antietam. 
I saw the grave of her husband in Blandford a short 
time ago, and by the date on the tombstone I knew 
that he died one year after their marriage; since which 
time I have thought that the woes of life are more 
equally divided than we sometimes think. 

“We boys were expected to do the chores at the 
barn; to bring in the wash water and the drinking 
water from a distant spring in the pasture; to help 
cut the wood in the forest; to chop it at the back door; 
to pile it carefully in the woodshed; and bring in 
regularly a supply every night for the fire the next 
morning. We were also expected to perform all kinds 
of household duties, such as washing the dishes and 
sometimes cooking the buckwheat cakes for meals; 
and we became very skilful in taking the vegetables 
and bread from the fireplace when the baking and 
boiling were done. We sometimes assisted in rough 
sewing, and always filled the straw beds in the fall 
with fresh straw from the fields. 


THE CONWELL HOME 37 


“No intoxicating liquors were allowed in our house 
except on the doctor’s prescription in time of illness; 
and the evils of intemperance were often called to our 
attention by the example of some intemperate neigh- 
bors. We were taken to church with our parents 
every Sunday, and were early placed in the little 
Sunday-school which followed the morning service. 
My father was sometimes very severe with his boys 
but altogether indulgent toward my sister. She was 
an anchor which we kept ever at the windward; and 
I fear that when we so often divided our little store 
of candy—or gave her the largest half of an apple 
—it was done for the very selfish motive of winning 
her friendship that she might stand between us and 
our father when punishment was near for having 
whittled the pew in church or eaten an apple when 
the congregation was at prayer. She was our House 
of Refuge when we had been fishing instead of hoeing 
the corn and, if it had not been for her wholesome 
fear of her mother, I do not think our father would 
have ever punished us for anything when our sister 
was near to take our part. I recall that he often 
went into the edge of the woods to cut a very supple 
stick with which to punish me severely for some 
disobedience; and when his stern face appeared, with 
stick in hand, I knew there was only one way out 
of the trouble which was beyond all human language 
to describe, for he had a strong hand and a deter- 
mined disposition to make his children do right. But, 
suddenly, my sister would appear from some corner, 
when she heard my outcry, and would rush up and 
catch father’s arm. He would look at her an instant, 
then indignantly throw the stick on the ground, and 
turn, muttering, to his work. 

“The memory of that sister—her love and self- 


38 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


sacrifice, and the complete control she had of father— 
is one of the most beautiful things in all of life’s mem- 
ories. Wherever my brother and I went we always 
corresponded very frequently with our sister and gave 
her all the details of our various experiences. She 
always read her letters to father and mother and 
wrote for them when she was at home. She was an 
untiring nurse, a thorough school teacher, and patient 
to an unusual degree. God bless the sisters! 

“My brother was a mechanical genius and became 
a civil engineer after his term of service in the Civil 
War. He died from consumption contracted while 
in the service. He was at the time of his death on 
the staff of General Warren, surveying the Mississippi 
River for the Government. | 

‘A flock of sheep on the hillside were but so many 
white spots to me in my boyhood; but that one pet 
lamb and its tragic death, when we needed something 
to eat, is a fearful chapter in life’s history. That one 
faithful dog who loved us more because we were poor; 
that one old cow who warmed places for our bare feet 
when she arose on a frosty morning; that one old mare 
who was so wise that she could let down the pasture 
bars with her teeth; that one squirrel in the old box 
with slats nailed across the top; that one tame crow 
and the short-lived woodchuck who made up in a kind 
of affection, for the kicks of the cow, the horns of the 
bull and the bite of the blacksnake, are intense facts 
coming down through life with a gleam of their own. 

“So, probably, we boys were better off with one book, 
with one hard bed in an old attic, with no theater, 
with no seashore excursions, than if we had been let 
loose to tear up a great library and throw spitballs 
at antique paintings. There was one tiger lily which 
grew out by the old rock in our little vegetable garden 


| 
| 





THE CONWELL HOME 39 


which I have kept alive through years, and over which 
I now sometimes weep as I think of the generations 
who have looked carelessly upon it and have wondered 
why it was allowed to grow in the lawn amid the mod- 
erm improvements which surround the rebuilt old 
homestead. if have seen the time since those days, 
when I spent my last penny for a loaf of bread, and 
when a hard floor in the city of Boston was the only 
bed that my wife and I could afford. But that bitter 
experience has made bread as sweet as cake and shelter 
a blessing ever since. 

‘‘He was divinely wise who said, ‘It was well for 
me that I bore the burden in my Oh We were 
kept busy on the farm; in fact, I think the best and 
greatest university of life is attended by the country 
boy on the hillside farm far away from the railway 
station, where he is shut in by the storms of fall and 
spring and especially imprisoned in the hard, long 
winter. We had to make our own implements and 
do everything connected with every trade which 
touched our lives. We tanned woodchuck skins and 
prepared the pelts of foxes and muskrats. We stuffed 
birds, prepared sauces, canned vegetables, dried apples, 
built sheds and lean-tos, and used the plane and saw 
to make stanchions for the cattle. We made wagons, 
sleds, desks, bedsteads, hoes, plows and harness. We 
manufactured water pipe, Jocks, kitchen utensils, 
blank school books, pens, pencils, sugar-buckets, 
traps and maple sugar. 

“We filed saws, hewed lumber, peeled hemlock 
bark and gathered herbs of all kinds for medicines 
and antidotes for poison. We cultivated wild roses 
and hollyhocks. We studied agriculture to send the 
largest potatoes to the County Fair. We set window 
glass, made chains for the ‘Old Oaken Bucket,’ hewed 


40 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


stone, made plaster, laid walls, made our own envel- 
opes out of wrapping paper, and used the white birch 
bark for letter writing. We were compelled by neces- 
sity to invent some new thing almost every day, to 
make some new combination; and the practical teacher 
in that district school spent at least one-half of her 
time in answering questions from the inquisitive pupils 
who were ever asking how to do things. 

‘““My father died at the age of sixty and my mother 
at the age of sixty-three, both of them having been 
worn out with ceaseless work through so many years 
of struggle with poverty and care. 

“The old farm in the Highlands of Hampshire 
County, Massachusetts—almost the highest point of 
land in the state—has been my retreat through these 
many years when, overworked or in great sorrow, 
I have desired to escape from the ‘madding crowd.’ 
Charles Dickens told me at his home in Gad’s Hill, 
that, he was working with the hope of securing enough 
money before he died to surround his little estate with 
a high wall like that which Lord Tennyson had put 
around his garden. Mr. Dickens had become so 
weary of the adulation and publicity of his position 
that he wished to shut himself in completely from the 
world, and allow nothing to come in the gate but the 
necessities of life and one or two of his most trusted 
friends. 

‘Often in my experience, which has been far humbler 
and far more private than that of Dickens, I have 
gone back to the old home and found solace, strength 
and hope returning; and I sallied forth, after a few 
days, fresh for further effort. The possession through 
life, of that dear old mountain home, has been one of 
the gifts of God, immeasurable in its comforting asso- 
ciations and constant in its influence for good, from 


THE CONWELL HOME 41 


the examples of loved ones of childhood who still seem 
to people it at every twilight hour.”’ 

The life of the Conwell family was, therefore, one 
of hard work, self-denial and poverty. But it was 
not sordid or unhappy, as is often the case in homes 
where poverty prevails. Martin and Miranda Conwell 
did not let themselves become entirely absorbed in 
the task of making a living. They took a keen and 
active interest in the affairs of the day, and maintained 
in the home an atmosphere that lifted it above the 
deadening routine of constant labor. 

Martin Conwell was a tireless reader. The fund of 
information he thus acquired was always at the serv- 
ice of his neighbors. People came from all parts of 
the county to consult him, and their inquiries ranged 
from corn planting and potato raising to the building 
of houses and the making of roads. 

His sympathies were broad and humanitarian. 
“The only point upon which I ever knew my father 
and mother to seriously differ,’”’ said Doctor Conwell, 
in speaking of his father, ‘‘was about his insistence 
upon always having an extra plate on the table for 
anyone who might be going by at mealtime, and 
who asked for food. 

“My mother did not fully approve of this prac- 
tice, but he steadfastly adhered to it. I remember 
one man who came rather regularly—a fellow by the 
name of Patch. He was a seedy-looking individual— 
no doubt a tramp. ‘The fact that he took advantage 
of our hospitality made no difference to my father. 
The man was hungry and that was sufficient. That 
place at our table was rarely vacant; but even when 
it was, it was significant and had its influence. It 
was a silent spokesman for true hospitality.” 

Martin Conwell showed his love for his fellowmen 


42 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


in other ways, of graver and more serious import to 
himself and his family. He was one of those who 
helped fugitive slaves to escape to Canada and, though 
he was in danger of imprisonment for the assistance 
he gave, the personal risk never deterred him. The 
stand he took in this matter showed his fearlessness 
in the cause of right, and his determination to side 
with it regardless of the consequences. 

“Many of the early years of my life were over- 
shadowed by the fear of "my father’s arrest by the 
United States marshal,’’ Doctor Conwell has said, in 
telling of those exciting days when the serenity of 
that little home was disturbed by the sudden appear- 
ance of one of these fugitives. 

“The anti-slavery movement had reached a state 
of such excitement in 1845 that many people of New 
England thought it to be their sacred duty to disobey 
the Federal law which required the return of an escap- 
ing slave to his master in the South. Among all the 
recollections of childhood there is none so sombre as 
the memory of those fearful days when mother and 
us children were in constant fear that father might 
be taken away to prison. | 

“During the first ten years of my childhood the 
little loft over the old woodshed on our farm was very 
frequently occupied by an escaped slave. Whenever 
we saw the woodshed locked with a padlock, we knew 
that a slave was on the inside and that father carried 
the key. It was not often that we were permitted 
to see the runaway, as he or she usually arrived at 
night and was taken away by father during the night. 
The persistence of those years of gloom have remained 
with me throughout life; for it was a great and dark 
secret for the children to keep, and we only mentioned 
it to each other in very low whispers. But it filled 


THE CONWELL HOME 43 


our dreams at night and spoiled our luncheon at noon 
in the schoolhouse, and gave us hours of anxious 
watching for father’s return from Springfield. 

‘The line of the so-called ‘Underground Railway,’ 
organized for the assistance of escaping slaves, ran 
from Virginia through Philadelphia, New York, Spring- 
field (Massachusetts), Bellows Falls and St. Albans 
(Vermont), and my father had charge of the line 
between Springfield and Bellows Falls. It was a 
great sacrifice for him to give the large amount of 
time and money which he used in helping the colored 
people to the freedom of Canada, for he never received 
a dollar or its equivalent in return for his years of 
labor and expense.” 

Thus, Martin Conwell set the current of that home 
life toward large things. His everyday life was an 
example of resourcefulness and unceasing industry; 
of interest and participation in affairs outside of his 
home; of the need and value of reading and studying; 
of brotherly kindness and fearless courage in espousing 
any cause which he felt to be right. 

Miranda Conwell was as keenly interested as her 
husband in the affairs of the day. She was as great 
a reader; also a devoted Bible student and a woman 
of deep spirituality. Some have described her as a 
mystic. Doctor Conwell himself says that she was 
deeply spiritualistic. She it was who read and explained 
the stories of the Bible, biographies of great men, and 
letters of travel in the New York Tribune. Thus she 
brought more directly and practically into the lives of 
her children the atmosphere of earnest thought which 
she and Martin Conwell gave the home. 

Hence the home life, though outwardly poor and 
circumscribed, was rich and without limitation in the 
things that really count. Life in this family circle was 


44 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


in accord with the best forces of living; and so the 
life of the children was helped to the fullest and truest 
expression. 

“T do not know but that my father and mother in 
their sacrifices and poverty had a happier life than 
many wealthy people of today.” Doctor Conwell says, 
“T can recall evenings in my childhood when my 
father made shingles in the kitchen and my mother 
sat near him sewing on garments by which she earned 
a little money; my sister, my brother and myself 
played about with such crude toys as we could make 
for ourselves; yet a spirit of cheerfulness and content 
reigned that is lacking in many a luxuriously furnished 
home. My parents enjoyed their sacrifices. They 
were happy in making them. When one does a thing 
for love, he is always happy.” 


CHAPTER V 
Tur FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT 


Doctor Conwell Gives Personal Recollections of John 
Brown, Frederick Douglas, William Cullen Bryant 
and Other Distinguished People Who Infiwenced 
Him in His Boyhood. 


unpainted farmhouse on the rocky hillside was 

a magnet to people of the same mettle. Neigh- 

bors who read and thought dropped in, and 
visitors interested in the affairs of the day came and 
went. The fireside became a forum for the discussion 
of the big issues that were forging to the front. 

It was a time when great problems were stirring 
thought, and the tides of feeling were beginning to 
set strongly in certain directions. With a man who 
had as strong a personality and was as outspoken in 
his convictions as Martin Conwell, and with a woman 
for whom life was largely illumined by a spiritual 
light, the discussions about the fireside of a winter 
evening, or on the stoop in the summer, were on a 
high, thoughtful plane. The questions of the day 
were probed to find the right and justice in them, as 
well as to discover their political significance. One 
of the events that caused widespread discussion was 
the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. Of this a New 
England writer says: 

“This law permitted a man to swear before an obscure 
magistrate in a slave state that another man was his 
slave; and then required the marshals and commis- 

(45) 


ck earnest, purposeful life housed in this little 


46 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


sioners of the United States, without considering 
whether this ex-parte affidavit was true, to arrest the 
alleged slave and deliver him to the claimant on proof 
only that the person arrested was the person men- 
tioned in the affidavit, giving the commissioner if he 
remanded the slave a fee of ten dollars, and if he 
decided against the claimant a fee of only five dollars— 
a small bribe, you will say; but this was a day of small 
things, and the men who framed the law thought the 
difference worth making. By express provision of the 
law the testimony of the alleged fugitive could not be 
admitted. Had any one under such a law sought to 
take another’s horse, the community would have 
risen in arms against it; but when it was used to 
deprive a man and his descendants, forever, of free- 
dom the American people as a whole approved. 

“There were men who could not submit to such a 
travesty of law—men in whose hearts and minds the 
spirit of Anglo-Saxon freedom was too deeply rooted.” 
It was such men who gathered about the fireside of 
Martin Conwell. One who was frequently there and 
who voiced his opinion earnestly and without reserve 
was John Brown. 

‘““My father held, for a time, a kind of partnership 
with John Brown, whose office was in Springfield, 
Massachusetts, and who was engaged in the purchase 
of wool for various factories in this country and in 
England,” says Doctor Conwell, in speaking of this 
friend of the family. ‘John Brown often visited our 
little home and always slept in the northwest bedroom. 
The door of that bedroom I have retained in its primi- 
tive shape through all the changes which have been 
made on the old estate. His homely advice to us in 
those days of childhood had a most powerful influence 
on our future thinking and acting.” 


THE FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT 47 


The business place which John Brown occupied in 
Springfield is now torn down and a large hotel stands 
on the site. It was near the present railway station, 
but one of the homes in which he lived in Springfield 
is still standing on Franklin Street. It is a two-and-a- 
half-story frame building with a piazza across the 
front. 

At the time in which he lived in it, this section was 
one of the pleasant residential parts of the town, though 
today it is looked upon as one of the less desirable dis- 
tricts. Evidently, however, the place did not favorably 
impress Frederick Douglas, who visited there. Writing 
of it, he says: 

“The house is a small wooden building on a back 
street chiefly occupied by laboring men. Respectable 
enough, to be sure, but not quite the place, I thought, 
where one would look for the residence of a flourishing 
and successful merchant. Plain as was the outside, 
the inside was plainer. Its furniture would have 
satisfied a Spartan. It would take longer to tell what 
was not in this house than what was in it. It is said 
a house in some measure reflects the character of its 
occupants. This one certainly did. In it were no 
disguises, no illusions, no make-believes. Everything 
implied stern truth, solid principle and rugged economy. 
He fulfilled St. Paul’s idea of the head of the family. 
His wife believed in him and the children observed 
him with reverence. Whenever he spoke, his words 
commanded earnest attention. His arguments, which 
I ventured at some points to oppose, seemed to con- 
vince all. His appeals touched all and his will 
impressed all. Certainly I never felt myself in the 
presence of a stronger religious influence than while 
in that man’s house.” 

Frank Sanborn, one of the best known of Brown’s 


48 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


biographers, says of him: ‘‘He sought perfection in 
all his undertakings.’”’ Emerson writes of him: “The 
saint whose fate yet hangs in suspense but whose 
martyrdom, if it shall be perfected, will make the 
gallows glorious like the cross.’ Thoreau, speaking 
of his death, says: ‘‘He was one who recognized no 
unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. 
No man in America has ever stood up so persistently 
for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself 
for man and the equal of*any and all governments. 
He could not have been tried by his peers, for his 
peers did not exist.” 

John Brown, with his persistence, his rugged ‘deals 
of truth and honesty, his deep religious convictions, 
and who stood so high in the estimation of the best 
men of his time, came and went in the Conwell home 
with the freedom of an honored friend. Speaking of 
the first time he saw him, Doctor Conwell says: 

“T often glance back to the Hampshire Highlands of 
the dear old Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts, where 
my elder brother and myself slept in the attic which 
had one window in the gable end, composed of four 
lights, and these very small. I remember that attic 
distinctly with the ears of corn hung by the husks on 
the bare rafters; the rats running over the floor and 
sometimes over the faces of the boys; the patter of 
the rain upon the roof; the whistle of the wind around 
that gable end; and the sifting of the snows through 
the hole in the window over the pillow on our bed. 
While these things may appear very simple and homely, 
yet I mention them because in this house I had a 
glimpse of the first great man I ever saw. That home 
was far off in the country; far from the railroad; far 
from the city; yet into that region there came occa- 
sionally a man or woman whose name ‘is a household 
word in the world. 


THE FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT 49 


“I remember that in 1852 my father brought home 
a man who was put for the night into the northwest 
bedroom. ‘This is the room where those New Eng- 
landers always put their friends because, perhaps, 
pneumonia comes there first—that awful, cold and 
dismal northwest bedroom. ‘Thinking a_ favorite 
uncle had come, I went to the door early in the 
morning. ‘The door was shut and it was one of those 
doors which will immediately swing open if you lift 
the latch. I lifted the latch and prepared to leap 
in to awaken my uncle and astonish him by my early 
morning greeting. But when the door swung back 
I glanced toward the bed. The astonishment chills 
me at this moment, for in that bed was not my uncle 
but a giant. His toes stood up at the footboard; his 
long hair was spread out over the pillow and his long 
gray whiskers lay on the bed clothes, and, oh, that 
snore—it sounded like some steam horn! 

“That giant figure frightened me and I rushed out 
into the kitchen and said, ‘Mother, who is that strange 
man in the northwest bedroom?’ and she said, ‘Why, 
that is John Brown.’ I had never seen John Brown 
before, although my father had been with him in the 
wool business in Springfield. I had heard strange 
things about John Brown, and the huge size of the 
man made them seem doubly terrible; so I hid beside 
my mother, where I said I would stay until the man 
was through his breakfast. But father came out and 
demanded that the boys should come in, and he set 
me right under the wing of that awful giant. How- 
ever, when John Brown saw us coming in so timidly, 
he turned to us with a smile so benign and beautiful 
and so greatly in contrast to what we had pictured 
him, that it was a transition. He became to us boys 
one of the loveliest men we ever knew. He would 


50 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


go to the barn with us and milk the cows and pitch 
the hay from the haymow. He drove the: cattle to 
water for us and told us many a story until the dear, 
good old man became one of the treasures of our life. 

‘He endeared himself to us in many ways. One 
of them was by the infinite patience which he showed 
in teaching our old horse to go home alone with the 
wagon after he had taken us to school, and to come 
again after school was over. Uncle Brown used to 
walk beside the horse and turn it at the proper places 
until it knew the way and would start off itself, when 
given the word, and come and go without ever making 
a@ wrong turn. 

“‘T remember Brown with love—deep and sacred— 
up to this present time. However great an extremist 
John Brown was, there were many of them in New 
England.’ Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison 
and John Brown could never agree. John Brown used 
to criticise Wendell Phillips very severely. He said 
that Wendell Phillips could not see to read the clearest 
signs of revolution, and that Phillips reminded him of 
the husband who bought a gravestone that had been 
earved for another woman. When the stonecutter 
said, ‘That has the name of another person on it,’ 
the widower replied, ‘Oh! that makes no difference; 
my wife couldn’t read.’ 

‘‘John Brown once said that William Lloyd Garri- 
son was like the woman who never could see a joke. 
One morning, seated at the breakfast table, her hus- 
band cracked a joke but she did not smile. He said, 
‘Mary, you could not see a joke if it were fired at you 
from a Dahlgren gun,’ whereupon she remarked: ‘Now 
John, you know they do not fire jokes out of a gun.’ 

“Well do I recall December 9th, of 1859—the day 
on which John Brown was hanged. Only a few weeks 








MIRANDA CONWELL 


MorHerR or Russevu H. CONWELL 


THE FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT 51 


before he had come to our house and my father had 
subscribed to the purchase of rifles to aid in the 
attempt to raise an insurrection among the slaves. 
The last time I saw John Brown he was in the wagon 
with my father. Father gave him the reins and came 
back as though he had forgotten something. John 
Brown said, ‘Boys, stay at home! Stay at home! 
Now, remember, you may never see me again,’ and 
then in a lower voice, ‘And I do not think you will 
ever see me again.’ But remember the advice of your 
Uncle Brown’ (as we called him), ‘and stay at home 
with the old folks, and remember that you will be 
more blessed here than anywhere else on earth. The 
happiest place on earth for me is still my old home in 
Litchfield, Connecticut.’ 

“The hanging of John Brown, which immediately 
preceded the opening of the Civil War, aroused the 
New England people to an indignation which was like 
the bursting forth of a great conflagration. Our home 
was doubtless very much like that of thousands of 
other families in those mountainous states, and it 
may be that their experience was very much like that 
in our little home. On the 9th of December, 1859, 
which was the day set for the execution of John Brown 
at Winchester, Virginia, my father called his family 
into the kitchen at eleven o’clock and commanded 
that all should remain quiet without speaking a word 
until the clock struck twelve. He took down the 
old Bible from the mantel and seemed to make an 
effort to read in the Psalms; but he did not read 
aloud and his tears must have soon blotted out his 
view of the words. 

“The old bell in the Methodist Church in the village 
down the valley began to toll and made one stroke 
with each minute of the sixty in the hour. It was 


4 


52 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the longest hour I ever experienced. We sat and 
looked at the floor, listening to the sobs of my mother, 
and counted sixty in the interval of each minute. 
I cannot dissuade myself even in these years of my 
age from the deep impression that the bell had a 
divine voice and spake in intelligent language. I 
have often read in poetry and history of the language 
of the bells; but never before or since have they ever 
expressed to my ear and heart such messages of sor- 
row, such hatred of injustice, such pity for the weak, 
such appeals to God, and such trumpet calls to duty, 
as came up the valley from that bell on that solemn 
day. 

‘““My father had received, only two days before, a 
letter from John Brown, which he had written in jail 
and in which he sent his love to the boys, asking them 
to think of him sometimes in after life as one who 
had humbly tried to do his duty. That bell emphasized 
all his goodness of heart and repeated his good deeds 
of kindness to us as children; and while we felt that 
he was extreme and somewhat fanatical in his decla- 
rations and plans, yet we knew full well that his heart 
was set on the service of God and his intention was 
noble and pure. 

“T suppose that the bells in all the New England 
villages tolled at the same time and in the same way. 
They aroused a patriotic determination to rid the 
land of what we believed to be a dreadful curse, and 
the call of those bells furnished a great incentive to 
the youth of all the East and North, when President 
Lincoln sent out his call for men to fight for the pre- 
servation of the Union. The voice of that church- 
bell in the ever-increasing width of its sound waves is 
said by philosophers to be eternal. But equally so 
is the influence of every good man who surrenders 


THE FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT 33 


his life for a cause in which he believes he is serving 
God, though there may be errors in the form of his 
service. 

“In our home on the day John Brown was hung 
there was a funeral of the sincerest kind. We children 
ate but little and our parents did not taste of food. 
I do not recall ever having heard my father weep aloud 
at any other time, as he did when the clock struck 
twelve on that awful day. 

“That experience filled us with extreme prejudices 
against the people of the South and, from that day 
until the slaves were emancipated by Abraham Lin- 
coln, our souls were filled with bitterness and hatred, 
which are the usual accompaniments of war. And 
it has taken more than half a century for all the people 
on both sides to see how useless and fratricidal, after 
all, that war was. How much better it would have 
been to have accepted President Lincoln’s reeommenda- 
tion and purchased the slaves of the South at their 
normal valuation and set them free without revolution 
and without bloodshed.” 

John Brown was not the only man of forceful char- 
acter who came into the life of the Conwell family. 
Fred Douglas himself visited the home. Doctor Con- 
well, in describing the first time he saw him, says: 

“One night my father drove up in the dark, and my 
elder brother and I looked out to see who it was he 
brought home with him. We supposed he had brought 
a slave whom he was helping to escape. But in the 
light of the lantern a white man was assisting to 
unhitch the horses and put them into the barn. In 
the morning this white man sat at the breakfast table 
and my father introduced us to him, saying, ‘Boys, 
this is Frederick Douglas, the great colored orator.’ 

“T looked at him, and said, ‘He isn’t black, he is 
white.’ | 


{ 


54 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


“Mr. Douglas turned to us and said, ‘Yes, boys, 
Iam acolored man. My mother was a colored woman 
and my father a white man. And,’ said he, ‘I have 
never seen my father, and I do not know much about 
my mother. I remember her once when she inter- 
fered between me and the overseer who was whipping 
me, and she received the lash upon her cheek and 
shoulder, and her blood ran across my face and 
clothes.’ 

“That story made a deep impression on us. It 
was stamped indelibly on our memories. Frederick 
Douglas frequently came to our house after that and 
my mother often said to him, ‘Mr. Douglas, you will 
work yourself to death.’ But he replied that until 
the slaves were free—and that would be very soon— 
he must devote his life to them.” 

William Cullen Bryant lived but a short distance 
from Martin Conwell. Like Martin Conwell, Bryant 
was deeply interested in the escape of runaway slaves 
and this sympathy in a common cause often brought 
them together, probably more vitally than if there 
had been no such bond. 

Doctor Conwell had a vivid remembrance of Bryant’s 
influence upon his early life. ‘‘I have never forgotten 
the advice he gave me one day,’’ Doctor Conwell said, 
in speaking of him, ‘‘for when I told him that I was 
not able to earn sufficient money to go away to school, 
he told me that many of the greatest men in America 
had not been able to go to school at all, but had learned 
to study at home, and had used their spare hours with 
books which they carried about in their pockets. After 
that, for more than thirty years I carried various 
books and learned seven different languages, using 
the hours of travel, or when waiting at stations, in 
reading and careful study. It always surprises a young 


THE FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT _ 55 


man to find how much he can learn if he used his spare 
hours with some book which he has conveniently 
placed in his pocket. By far the greatest part of my 
useful education was obtained in such circumstances. 

“‘T remember, too, once asking him if he would come 
down to the stream where he wrote ‘Thanatopsis’ 
and recite it for us. The good old neighbor, white- 
haired and trembling, came down to the banks of that 
little stream and stood in the shade of the same old 
maple tree where he had written that beautiful poem, 
and read from the wonderful creation that made his 
name famous: 


‘* “So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.’ 


“We were driving by his place one day when we 
saw him planting apple trees in July. We knew that 
apple trees wouldn’t grow when planted in July, so 
my father called to him and said, ‘Mr. Bryant, what 
are you doing there? They won’t grow.’ Mr. Bryant 
paused a moment, looked at us, and then said half 
playfully, ‘Conwell, drive on. You have no part nor 
lot in this matter. I do not expect these trees to grow. 
I am setting them out because I want to live over 
again the days when my father used to set out trees. 
I want to renew the memory.’ 

‘‘He was wise, for in his works on ‘The Transmigra- 
tion of Races,’ he used that experience wonderfully. 
I recall some of the experiments he made for that 
work—how he transplanted trees at all seasons and in 
various locations for the sake of studying the effect 


56 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


of different exposures and soils. His work was to me 
a constant source of wonder and speculation.” 

In discussing the men who greatly influenced his 
early life, Doctor Conwell spoke warmly of those who, 
though he did not know them personally, inspired him 
through reading about their studying at home. 

“Wlihu Burritt, the learned blacksmith, was one of 
the inspirations of my younger days,” he says. ‘‘His 
example influenced many boys of New England to 
improve their spare time in the reading of valuable 
books or studying some language or history or science. 
The day is not past when in America a young man can 
secure a very useful and extended education by the 
use of his evenings at home. ‘Those men have become 
the deepest thinkers and the most vigorous patriots 
who have been compelled to secure their instruction 
under difficulties, and it is a misfortune to be taught 
too much. It is often a loss to have a teacher too 
near for consultation, as the mind ought to work out 
the problems for itself, in order to secure that disci- 
pline of mind which is worth more than any aggregation 
of facts. | 

‘When I began the practice of law in Boston, my 
home was at Newton Center, Massachusetts, and I 
made it a practice to go to my law office at five o’clock 
in the morning to prepare the work for my clerks and 
arrange the roster for the day’s practice. On my 
way back and forth from my home to the city, I learned 
to read Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, French and German. 
The early morning hours and the desire for a change of 
thought made the study exceedingly fascinating, and 
each day I looked forward with joy to the hour I 
would have for the study of a language the next morn- 
ing on the train. Study was not then a drudgery 
but a most exhilarating sport. The facts and rules 


THE FRIENDS THAT CAME AND WENT 57 


which I learned in such circumstances have remained 
firmly with me, while very much of that which I learned 
in school and college has faded completely from my 
mind. 

“A strong and determined young man or woman 
ean work his way up to the highest intellectual stations 
and to the noblest achievements of art or science by 
the exercise of patience, perseverance and care in the 
use of such text-books as can now be secured at almost 
any public library. Too much dependence upon school 
or the assistance of tutors is a bad habit which often 
destroys one’s self-confidence and defeats his best 
ambitions. I learned enough of the Russian and 
Chinese languages, by devoting myself assiduously 
to study while on my journey to those countries, so 
that I could travel and secure the comforts of life with- 
out difficulty, and was soon able to converse sufficiently 
for ordinary purposes. 

“Hivery-day reading, done carefully enough to be 
termed ‘every-day study,’ is an absolute necessity to 
the achievement of the highest and best of life, no 
matter how long a man may have attended college 
or universty. Education never ends until the last 
breath is taken. What a marvelous world this would 
be to the intelligent mind which had never missed an 
opportunity to learn something in all its years upon 
the earth. ‘But our lives are filled with blank spaces, 
where we might have learned something which would 
have brought us satisfaction of heart, and which would 
have given us opportunities to do greater deeds for 
mankind. And it will do everyone good to think 
what might have been, if those spaces had been prop- 
erly filled. What a wonderful life that would be, in 
which there had been no lost moments—no lost 
thoughts—no lost good deeds.’ ”’ 


58 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Another man whose coming and going in the Con- 
well home had a most beneficial effect was Asa Niles. 
He was a cousin of Martin Conwell’s and lived nearby. 
He had been a Methodist circuit preacher, but his 
health had broken down and he had been compelled 
to give up the work. He was a keen student of human 
nature; a man of wide reading for those days, and a 
great believer in education. He was highly regarded 
in the neighborhood and wielded much influence. He 
dropped into the Conwell home informally; added his 
views to any discussion that might be going on among 
neighbors or visitors there, and was listened to with 
deference and regard. ‘The opinions of such a man 
influenced every member of the family and he held a 
place of high esteem in their affections. Because of 
this, his advice at a critical time had a momentous 
influence in shaping Russell Conwell’s career. 





CHAPTER VI 
EarRty YEARS 


Formative Influence of Nature. Traits Developed 
by the Hard Work of the Farm. The Literature 
of the Home and Its Influence upon His Lyfe. 


and contact with the life of the day, Russell Con- 

well grew up. So far as the ordinary happenings 

of his daily life are concerned, they were much the 
same as those of the average poor farmer’s son. 

He was a keen-eyed, quick-motioned, active child, 
full of questions about the things he saw in the world 
around him. The woods that encircled the farm were 
filled with animal life, and the streams abounded with 
fish. The birds, squirrels, woodchuck and deer were 
a never-ending source of delight to him. He snared 
the smaller animals for pets and spent long hours 
fishing for the trout that lay warily in clear pools or 
glided like shadows along the banks. 

Doctor Conwell was once asked if he thought it 
better for a child to grow up in the country than in 
the city, and if the natural beauty all about him in 
his childhood days had any especial effect on him. 

“T do not know that it did,” he replied thought- 
fully. ‘‘I do not think a child appreciates such things. 
Life is so full of interest to the young that, whether 
he is in the city or the country, there is always some- 
thing to stimulate his mind and lead him on a tour 
of investigation. And it is this stimulation of the 
mind—this finding out things for himself—that is 

(59) 


|: this atmosphere of hard work, earnest thought 


60 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


good for a child. I will say, though, that I believe 
the outdoor life and the hard work I had to do gave 
me the physical stamina that enabled me in later 
years to carry the burdens that life brought.” 

The childish inquisitiveness of Russell Conwell, the 
boy, was not confined to the world of nature. His 
thirst for information of all kinds was so keen that 
at the age of eight he was continually sending for 
pamphlets, circulars and newspapers that would satisfy 
the curiosity aroused by a chance advertisement, or 
tell him something that he wanted to know. At this 
early age his mail at the little country post-office was 
a matter of comment and often jest. He was teased 
and joked about the mass of matter he received. 

As the years came on, work took the place of play. 
Russell was compelled by his father to labor long days 
at clearing the hillsides, and hoeing and planting. He 
had no more liking for this work than have most boys, 
but by it he acquired qualities as important as was 
the stimulation of his mind by the world of nature. 
The real crops which he raised in those stony fields 
were not potatoes and corn and hay but patience, 
self-control, the sacrifice of personal desires for the 
family good, and the overcoming of seemingly insur- 
mountable obstacles by steady, persistent work. 

Among the traits of character early developed, per- 
severance was most noticeable. Many stories that show 
Russell’s unusual persistence are told by neighbors. 
When about eleven years of age, his capture of an 
eagle’s nest in the top of an old hemlock was the talk 
of the community. The tree was nearly fifty feet high, 
had been rent and splintered by lightning, and stood 
on the top of an outcropping ledge of rock that added 
to its dizzying height. No one would have thought 
it possible to secure the nest except by shooting it 


a a — 


EARLY YEARS 61 


down, but Russell determined to have that eagle’s 
nest, and he did not stop until he got it. 

He climbed the tree until he came to a broken limb 
which he could not get by nor break off. He studied 
a moment and then came down for his jack-knife. He 
clambered up to the broken limb and chipped away 
until the limb was severed. Then he went higher. 
It was a giddy height but he did not waver. About 
ten feet below the nest was a long, bare space with no 
knots or limbs to cling to. Again he paused and studied 
the situation. For a while he seemed baffled. Then 
down he came, ran to the house, got a piece of clothes- 
line, tied a large stone to the end of the rope and once 
more went up the tree. The rope and stone much 
hindered the boy’s progress but he kept going, and 
when he reached the smooth place again he tied him- 
self to the tree. After many attempts to throw the 
stone and rope over the limb above, on which the 
nest rested, he succeeded and, by means of this 
arrangement, scaled the bare stretch of trunk and 
secured the nest. 

At another time Master Russell worked half a day 
with iron bar and a shovel to dislodge a rock on the 
mountainside, merely for the joy of its crash down the 
hill. He finally succeeded and the rock—nine feet 
high, ten feet in diameter and weighing tons—thun- 
dered down the slope for nearly a mile, uprooting trees, 
dislodging rocks and finally with a crash that shook 
the earth plunged into the bed of a stream, where it 
is shown to this day. 

Another trait that was early noticeable was a strong 
sensitiveness to beauty. As a boy of ten, Russell 
Conwell was often sent by his father to spend the 
night in the woods watching the maple sugar boiling. 
He was tall and angular for his age, and his eyes were 


62 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the largest part of his thin, rugged face. His clothes 
were of poor material, crudely cut, and they hung 
rather shapelessly about his bony figure. Any one 
who saw this child during the long hours of the night 
feeding the fire and stirring the maple sugar would 
scarcely have expected him to welcome the dawn as 
he did. For, when the east began to faintly flush and 
the forest to wake with the first twitterings and calls 
of the birds, so intensely did he feel the beauty of it 
all that he would step outside the rude log sugar house 
and pour out his heart in those wonderful lines of 
Milton’s: 


“Hail, holy light! offspring of Heaven first-born! 
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice 
Of God, as with a mantle dist invest 
The rising world of waters, dark and deep.” 


A trait common to many children—the desire to 
dramatize in play the life about them—was strong 
with Russell, even as a small boy. And the things 
which his mother read aloud to him made an espe- 
cially vivid appeal to his imagination. Rarely did a 
day go by—never a week—without Miranda Conwell’s 
reading to her children stories from the Bible and, as 
the little ones grew older, articles that would interest 
them from papers and magazines. As she read the 
Bible stories she made them understandable to childish 
ears, and the men and women of the Bible became very 
real to the children gathered about her knee. She 
read and explained articles from the New York Tribune, 
the Atlantic Monthly and the National Hra—rather 
heavy reading for children, perhaps, but not in the 
way she presented it to them. The letters from foreign 
correspondents which she read from the New York 
Tribune opened a new world to Russell. He wanted 
to know all about the places told of, the people who 
lived there, and how to get there. 


EARLY YEARS 63 


“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’”’ when it came out as a serial, 
was another of the readings. Coupled as the thought 
of this story was with the discussions that he heard 
about the fireside and the talk of John Brown, when 
the latter visited them, it made a deep impression 
upon him. 

So, also, did the sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, 
which his mother read. She usually followed these 
readings with a little talk about the man himself— 
for he was a great figure in those days—of the great 
and good work he was doing; of the value to the world 
of a minister’s life, and of its untold influence. 

Many of the things thus heard, Russell enacted in 
his play. When but a few years old, he was heard 
one day loudly addressing some one in the back yard. 
His mother went to the door and found him mounted 
upon a large rock delivering to the chickens the sermon 
she had read to him the night before. She told her 
husband of this incident and said, ‘‘ Perhaps some day 
our boy will be a preacher.” It was the earnest desire 
of both Martin and Miranda Conwell that Russell 
should become a minister, and they often referred to 
this occurrence and expressed their desire. Since the 
effect of thought upon action is beginning to be better 
understood, the influence upon the boy’s mind of this 
idea in the home life, and its frequent expression, can 
be fully appreciated. 

The part of Eliza fleeing over the ice, as described 
in ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was another favorite produc- 
tion of Russell’s. Near the house was @ mountain 
stream that came leaping and foaming down through 
a gorge filled with huge boulders, and high over this 
gorge was a fallen log. The small boy saw the special 
fitness of this log for the part he wanted to play. His 
first attempt to cross it made his mother’s heart stand 


64 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


still and she sternly forbade the feat, but the tempta- 
tion was too strong. He waited for a favorable chance 
and again ran to the log. ‘This time she whipped him 
severely. But at the first opportunity he went back, 
and he did not give up until he had crossed the log. 

The dramatic instinct was strong in Russell for many 
years and might have led him to try the stage had not 
an incident of his early youth killed, with the keen 
shaft of ridicule, his budding talent. Some of the 
boys and girls of the neighborhood were to give a play, 
and he had been selected to act the part of a crazy man. 
One day, while driving to town, Russell decided to 
practice his part. He had little to say; merely, ‘‘ Woe, 
woe, to ye all, ye children of men,” but he had to say 
it with fervor, and results show that he did. He was 
standing in the wagon at the time, and the horse was 
trotting. His thunderous ‘Woe! Woe!” brought the 
horse to a standstill, but not himself. He continued 
right over the back of the animal, down over the shafts 
and into the mud. His face was cut and his clothes 
were torn. ‘The incident itself might not have quenched 
his desire for the stage, but whenever he again spoke 
about the joys and distinctions of the actor’s life, the 
jibing references to this incident soon made the subject 
painful to discuss. 

Another incident concerning two calves of these 
early days is illuminating as a side-light on the sense 
of humor which is a marked characteristic of Doctor 
Conwell, and it also shows the effect which a chance 
remark frequently makes upon childish imaginations. 

The little store which his father had opened in the 
lean-to often became an unofficial court room for the 
settlement of neighborhood difficulties. The flour 
barrel served for the judge’s bench; the soap box and 
milking stool provided accommodations for the law- 


EARLY YEARS 65 


yers; and the jury, in the form of various neighbors, 
stood about amused, speculative, or judicial. In one 
such proceeding a neighbor had lost a calf—a white- 
faced calf with a broken horn—and in the barn of a 
nearby farmer had been seen a white-faced calf with 
a broken horn. The coincidence was suspicious and 
the plaintiff declared that it was his calf. The defend- 
ant swore that he had never seen the lost heifer, and 
that the one in his barn he had raised himself. The 
neighbors volunteered their testimony, for the little 
store was crowded. One man said that he had seen 
the defendant driving the white-faced calf up the 
mountain one night, just after the stolen calf had been 
missed from the pasture. The defendant denied this. 
Hot words flew back and forth between judge, lawyers 
and witnesses, and it began to look as if the man, in 
whose barn the calf was placidly munching, was guilty. 

Just then Russell, who had been quietly enjoying 
the proceedings from his perch on the counter, jumped 
down and with a chuckle disappeared through the 
back door. In a minute he returned and solemnly 
pushed among the almost fighting disputants a white- 
faced calf with a broken horn. ‘There was a lull in the 
storm of angry words. Here was the other lost calf! 
With a bawl and many gyrations of tail, 1t occupied 
the center of the floor. None could dispute the fact 
that it was the calf in question. The defendant 
assumed an air of injured innocence and the plaintiff 
looked crestfallen. The boy explained that he had 
found the calf among his father’s cows, but had enjoyed 
the heated argument too hugely to produce the animal 
earlier in the case. 

The event caused much amusement among the neigh- 
bors and some said that, if they ever were haled to 
court, they would employ Russell as their lawyer. 


66 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


The women, when they dropped in to see his mother, 
called him the little lawyer. Thus a thought was 
dropped into a lively imagination that no doubt had 
its influence in after life, producing fruit ‘‘after its 
kind.” 

All these childish experiences were not without their 
formative influence. ‘The perseverance which he 
developed as a boy became one of Doctor Conwell’s 
chief aids in carrying his later work to success. The 
love of beauty engendered has been of great value in 
his writings, his lectures and his sermons. His descrip- 
tions of nature have made an instant appeal and been 
one of the sources of his popularity. The desire to 
act out in play the images that thronged his childish 
mind enabled him, in later years, to give a dramatic 
quality to his sermons and lectures that played no 
inconsiderable part, both in holding the attention of 
his hearers and in fixing in their memories the point 
he wished to drive home. 

Thus from his work, his play, his reading and the 
daily incidents of home life, the warp and woof of his 
character were woven. In the hours free from work 
he roamed the woods and fields and learned much of 
value from the world of nature. When life narrowed 
to hard, unremitting toil, he ungrudgingly gave and 
so again received. Work brought the discipline that 
in later years was of the utmost service to him. 

Tagore, the Hindu poet, says, “‘From my wallet, 
I slowly took out the least little grain of corn and gave 
to Thee. How great my surprise when at the day’s 
end, I emptied my bag on the floor to find a least little 
grain of gold among the poor heap. I bitterly wept 
and wished I had given to Thee my all.” By giving 
largely, Russell Conwell ever received largely. 





RUSSELL H. CONWELL AT THE AGE OF TWELVE 


FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE 


at 


“ 





CHAPTER VII 
THE RuNAWAY 


Doctor Conwell Tells of His First Escapade. Run- 
ming Away a Second Time and Going to Europe. 


other fruitage. His keen interest in the world 

about him; his pleasure in the life which it 

offered; the opening of other worlds by his 
reading; and the delight he found, even in visualizing 
their joys by the power of imagination, made him want 
to see these worlds for himself, and live their actual 
life. As a result, at the age of thirteen, he ran away 
from home. 

In speaking of this event Doctor Conwell says, ‘‘I 
do not suppose this incident will be of much interest 
to any person, unless, perhaps, my great-grandchildren. 
But it illustrates a very important lesson to be learned 
by both old and young, and it made a deep impression 
upon my actions in life. 

“T had been reading through the long winter eve- 
nings a series of biographies of several heroes and a 
number of exciting volumes on foreign travel, and had 
examined closely a volume of historic engravings 
which had been loaned to us by a teacher in the dis- 
trict school. I was about thirteen years of age, and 
my imagination had been greatly aroused as I dreamed 
of what there must be in the great world beyond the 
range of mountains which surrounded my home. 

‘When I was driving home the cows from pasture 
in the evening, I would stand on the hilltop and look 


5 (67) 


R iter CONWELL’S busy boyhood had an- 


68 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


at the glowing western sky and wonder how far away 
it was to China. I even imagined myself to be with 
some great fleet crossing an immense sea, and in com- 
mand of one of the men-of-war. I hoped some day 
to be a Rajah and live in a place decorated with pearls 
and diamonds. The smallness of our little cottage— 
compared with the wonderful wealth and luxury of 
the palaces of Babylon—filled me with discontent, and 
I chafed at our homely labors and rebelled at the fare 
found on our table. I felt that there were great worlds 
for me to conquer, which I could never find in my 
native hills. I thought how glorious the world must 
be beyond my vision! 

“One day at a neighbor’s house I read a story 
printed in the New York Ledger, about a runaway boy 
who had become a comrade of Captain Kidd and had 
hidden rich treasures in Florida. The adventures of 
this boy and the great boxes of gold which he found 
buried in the sand were a continual harassment to me. 

“One night there came to me the thought that I, 
too, might run away from home and be as great as 
those men in the story, and all the next day I pon- 
dered over it until I finally resolved to venture forth 
into the great unknown world and see its beauties and 
seek its fortunes. At daylight the next morning I 
took a loaf of bread from the kitchen and my winter 
overcoat. With these I crept out through the attic 
over the woodshed and slipped down to the ground 
before anyone else in the house was out of bed. I ran 
for half a mile until out of breath going down the val- 
ley, and then walked up the distant mountain side. 

“As I clambered over a stone wall I glanced back 
to get a view of my cottage home which I had never 
had before. Then came the first feeling of homesick- 
ness which I ever knew. The awful desire to go back 


THE RUNAWAY 69 


and the tyrannical determination to go on battled in 
my soul for a few minutes, until I recklessly turned 
my back toward the old home and ran down the moun- 
tainside and into the forests which covered the valley. 
I followed the river road down to the railway station— 
nine miles from home—and there, with a few dollars 
which I had kept in a box as my own money, I pur- 
chased a half-rate ticket to Boston. 

“The long journey of a hundred miles was some- 
thing which has burned itself into my brain. I was 
going out to see the great world and had launched 
forth upon the deep. ‘There was something almost 
intoxicating in the experience, and my hopes and 
imagination knew no bounds. 

‘“‘T reached Boston early in the afternoon and walked 
down its unknown streets, gazing in the windows and 
feeling quite hungry. A man at a corner grocery 
store, seeing me awkardly looking about, asked me if 
I could help him for an hour or two in packing his 
goods, as his boy had gone away on a vacation. I 
gladly accepted his invitation and worked hard, and 
he paid me thirty cents. I did not tell him that I was 
hungry; but as soon as my task was over I started 
out and walked the streets for an hour and found a 
bakery. There I bought a roll of hot bread and, 
while eating it, walked the streets and gazed at the 
buildings, which seemed like enormous palaces to me. 

“T felt that I must find work very soon, and I tried 
to go back to the grocery man. But I could not find 
the street and had not seen the name of it, conse- 
quently I could not ask intelligently of any person 
where it was. I then entered several cheap-appearing 
stores and told the proprietors that I was a farmer’s 
boy; that my father had kept a little grocery store 
for a while; and that I would be glad to work for my 


70 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


board. I now suppose that the offer to work so cheap 
destroyed my chances for employment, as my services 
were not accepted. Then I went from shop to shop 
and from restaurant to restaurant to ask for some- 
thing to do. But everybody seemed too busy to talk 
to me, and when the sun was setting I stood on the 
corner of some street and began to cry. 

‘A gentleman came along in a hurry but stopped to 
ask me if I had been hurt. I told him that I was 
hungry and he gave me some money which, with the 
little I had left, enabled me to buy a bowl of oysters. 
How good those oysters tasted—fresh from the sea— 
can never be described! 

‘‘ After the meal I walked down to the Long Wharf, 
which was near the oyster saloon, and at the end of 
the wharf I noticed a hogshead which had been used 
for packing crockery. It was half-filled with straw, 
the head was out, and it lay on its side. As I passed 
that barrel I decided that I would return to it if I 
were reduced to the necessity of finding a sleeping 
place outside of some house. 

“I wandered on until darkness came, but kept my 
landmarks in mind, especially the Long Wharf. In 
the evening I heard some singing at a mission in the 
north end of Boston and stood by the door and listened 
until I became homesick. I felt that I was alone in 
the world—absolutely deserted; that my father would 
never receive me back; and that I should die of star- 
vation where no person in all the crowd would care. 
I went back and found the old barrel and crawled 
into it. I found the straw to be very soft and warm, 
although the atmosphere from the sea was quite chilly 
that evening. 

“I had been sitting inside the cask but a few 
moments trying to make myself comfortable, when a 


THE RUNAWAY 71 


large policeman came along and looked into the cask 
and said, ‘Sonny! What are you doing here?’ I had 
been told that policemen arrested people and so I 
thought of the many stories of prisons, jails, and hang- 
ings that I had heard. And [I shivered till my teeth 
chattered when I tried to say that I was alone and 
did not mean to do any harm by going in there and 
sitting down awhile. 

“The policeman questioned me very closely, at the 
same time with an unexpected kindness, and sometimes 
with smiles, so that I freely told him my whole story 
and why I was there. He then told me that I would 
find it very cold sleeping there, but that I might 
remain all night. He also said that he was ‘on the 
beat’ and would see that no harm came to me. He 
soon brought me a great overcoat and crept into the 
cask part way and tucked me in as tenderly as my 
mother used to do in my attic chamber bed. 

“T slept soundly that night and was awakened by the 
glorious chimes of bells from all parts of the city, for 
it was Sunday morning. I did not before appreciate 
that there could be so many bells in all the world. 
When I came out of the cask the policeman of the night 
before had gone away, but had left word with his 
successor to take care of the overcoat. The police- 
man who had relieved my good friend was not at all 
communicative and seemed to have no care whatever 
concerning me. He just rolled up the overcoat and 
silently marched away. 

“T then walked up the street wondering what to do 
for breakfast, as I felt very hungry again, had but 
six cents left, and saw nothing at that price in any 
window. Again the church bells chimed and their 
tones reminded me of the dear old Methodist bell at 
home. I wondered what my family were doing; 


72 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


whether they were frightened about me, and whether 
father would march straight to church and say nothing 
about my absence. 

“Then the thought came that I might not be missed 
at home as much as I had supposed, and that possibly 
they could get along very well without me. That was 
the thought that broke my heart. I put my head 
against the corner of a building and began to cry 
aloud. A hand was gently placed upon my shoulder 
and a very kind voice said *to me, ‘My boy! Are you 
in trouble?’ I turned, and the strong and vigorous 
man who looked so benignly upon me had in his arm 
a Bible and several other books. I afterwards learned 
that he was Deacon George W. Chipman, Superin- 
tendent of the Merrimac Street Mission. He insisted 
on taking me to a restaurant nearby, and ordering a 
breakfast beyond all possibility even of my unmeas- 
ured appetite—and he made me promise that I would 
come around the next corner to the mission as soon 
as I had finished my breakfast. I went immediately 
to the mission and he met me at the door with a smile, 
called me by name again and introduced me to a 
larger boy who took me to a class. But I was too 
terrified and sorrowful to think much of what was 
taught me. 

“‘ After the lessons were over, Deacon Chipman came 
to me and said, ‘If you will go with me, I will find 
you a place to sleep tonight and will get you a railroad 
ticket so that you can go home tomorrow.’ He said 
that I had been a very wicked boy to run away from 
a good home and from good Christian parents. He 
also said that I would be very sorry if I did not return 
to them and tell them that I had repented and would 
do better in the future. It was a poor lodging-house 
where I spent the night; but he had given me money 


THE RUNAWAY 73 


enough for a good breakfast, and I held my ticket 
carefully and reached the Boston and Albany railroad 
station an hour before the train started. It was a 
very long wait and the train went very slowly and 
seemed to stop at every second house along the way. 
But when I reached the station nearest to my home, 
I alighted with a leap and started almost on a run 
up the road which led towards the house. I was 
exhausted and delighted and weeping when I crept 
up to the cottage. 

‘“My father was out at the barn and I found mother 
in the kitchen crying because of her lost son. My sister 
soon came into the room and gave me a piece of her 
mind, and went off saying that she did not want to 
speak again to any such ungrateful boy. But my 
father—true to his calm characteristics—never men- 
tioned at any time in our after life, the fact that I 
had been away. He went about his work and sent me 
about my errands just the same as though I had been 
present all the time, and never showed by look or 
gesture that he was dissatisfied or disturbed. I wished 
very much to have him speak to me about my running 
away, as I wanted to set myself right with a full con- 
fession and a request for his forgiveness, but he gave 
me no opportunity. Still he must have seen by my 
manner how repentant I was, and by my willingness 
to do any kind of task with that clear determination 
to do it well, which followed through the months and 
probably through the years.” 

This was not the only time when Russell ran away. 
Two years later he again left the home nest and his 
wanderings this time took him much farther afield. 
No friendly Deacon Chipman interfered, nor is it likely 
that Russell would easily have been turned from the 
project, for he had planned to go to Europe. He 


74 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


went to Chicopee, to an uncle’s, whom he frankly told 
of his intended trip. The uncle kept him for a day 
or two by various expedients while he wrote to his 
father telling him the boy was there and what he 
intended to do. 

The father wrote back saying to give him what money 
he needed and let him go. 

The young adventurer crossed the Atlantic Ocean by 
working his way on a cattle steamer from New York 
to Liverpool, but it was a homesick boy that roamed 
about in foreign lands. He has said most feelingly 
since, “I felt that if I could only get back home I 
would never leave it again.” He did not stay abroad 
long and when he returned, his father again greeted 
him as if he had been absent only a few hours, and 
never by word or action referred to the subject. In 
fact, so far as Martin Conwell appeared, Russell might 
have been no farther than the next village. 


GHA PDE Rae MILLE 
ScHooL Days 


Doctor Conwell Describes His Early School Days. 
He Shows How One Can Get a Practical and Useful 
Education Right at Home. 


the value of an education and the children 

were early sent to the district school. One 

of the teachers under whom Russell studied— 
a Miss Salina Cole—was of great help to him. She 
had mastered the art of visual memory and taught 
her pupils to make on the mind a photographic impres- 
sion of the page, so that it could be recalled in its 
entirety, even to the details of punctuation. ‘This 
manner of study immediately appealed to Russell. 
It was something to “see if he could do.” It was 
also more interesting than the usual schoolroom meth- 
ods then in use, and he quickly determined to master 
the process. He would concentrate his mind intently 
upon the page before him and then, when he felt that 
he had fixed it in memory, he would close his eyes 
and repeat it word for word, including the punctuation 
marks. 

With the other pupils, Salina Cole was not so success- 
ful; but with Russell Conwell the results were remark- 
able. It was a faculty of the utmost value to him in 
after years. Often, when in military camp and far 
from books, he could recall page after page of his law 
works and study them during the long days of garri- 
son duty as easily as though the printed book were 

(75) 


My ee and Miranda Conwell knew full well 


76 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


in his hand. It was in this way that he learned two 
books of Milton’s ‘‘Paradise Lost;’? and so firmly 
were they fixed in the boyish memory that, all through 
his later life, Doctor Conwell could repeat them with- 
out a break. 

Of these early school days, Doctor Conwell says: 
“T began my educational career when I was three 
years old and walked a mile with my older brother 
to the schoolhouse set on the rocks on one side of a 
rough highway between the hamlet of South Worth- 
ington, where my father lived, and the large hamlet of 
Ringville, two miles north. The schoolhouse was built 
halfway between two villages in order to be impartial 
in the distribution of the educational privileges of the 
town; and that fact resulted in keeping away from 
school a large number of the pupils who could not 
walk so far in the rain or in the deep snow. I do not 
remember learning the alphabet and, so far as I can 
recollect, the first measure of education worth while 
which I received was in learning to repeat from the 
platform of the schoolhouse, ‘Mary had a Little Lamb.’ 

“The New England district school in 1845 was a 
motley gathering of all ages and grades, and the teach- 
ers were required to pass an examination in reading 
and writing. Those teachers were a strange con- 
glomeration of Latin, Greek, mathematics, ancient 
history, spelling and whipping. Since these memories 
are returning to me, I am thinking again of Mark 
Twain’s remark, ‘that the trouble with an old man’s 
memories is that he remembers so many things that 
ain’t so,’ but I can assert without reservation that, in 
the two years of that winter school, I was whipped 
eight times in one day, and usually for laughing at 
something which the teacher did not think funny. 

“What strange changes enter into life when you 


SCHOOL DAYS 77 


stop to think that a misplaced ribbon in the dress of 
a teacher will fill the whole schoolhouse with smiles 
which are not reawakened in old age by vaudeville, 
circuses, moving pictures, or the greatest comedy! 
I have paid five dollars for tickets to recall a good, 
old-fashioned laugh and then had to trust to my own 
imagination after I had left the hall in order to secure 
any return on my money. It is also curious to contem- 
plate that the children who have the least are usually 
the happiest, provided they have the bare necessities 
of life. All luxury seems to be a curse to childhood. 

“T recall a contest the boys and girls of our neigh- 
borhood had as to which one could correctly tell how 
high the spire of the Methodist church was without 
measuring it. The contest was to begin at the stroke 
of the bell and end within a certain time. I remem- 
ber very well the interest and excitement, and how the 
man who always rang the bell on Sundays climbed up 
in the belfry and, looking down upon the eager faces 
below, gave the stroke. My cousin won. He figured 
it out by the use of two shingles and later became a 
professor in the school of technology at Boston. We 
boys at home used to solve all sorts of mathematical 
problems drawn from the everyday work and imple- 
ments about us. I remember working out the weight 
of our grindstone by its circumference and momentum. 
Such methods were a practical and interesting way of 
learning arithmetic and caused mathematics to appeal 
to me like a puzzle. However, boys do not go to 
schools of this sort nowadays. 

“Education was in the air of New England fifty 
years ago. A half uncle of mine could speak and 
write seven languages; and yet never in his life was he 
in a city of more than five thousand people. He would 
take a book with him to the fields and talk Latin with 


78 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the man who was working with him. Latin was spoken 
in many of the back districts of New England in my 
early days, and the desire for knowledge was almost a 
passion with the people about me when I was young. 

“One of the things which I remember most vividly 
in my school days is hearing a recitation by a large 
boy who told the story of Prometheus who had brought 
down fire from heaven for the benefit of mankind and, 
for doing so, according to Greek mythology, was sen- 
tenced to be perpetually eaten by vultures as he lay 
chained to a rock. He must always suffer and never 
die! That picture of everlasting suffering, where the 
attempt was to do mankind good, has thrown a dark 
shadow across my life; but opposite to it has been 
placed a figure on a cross upon a hill, and the suffering 
which was only for this life, and which brought to the 
sufferer a far greater glory. What a hard and awful 
religion the Greek heathen did have, who thought that 
this life was all! And how strangely comforting is 
the story of the Christ, who teaches that suffering in 
this life is only a preparation for the higher place in 
the world to come. 

“T cannot carry my mind back to the time when 
I was not led to study, more or less, during the long 
evenings, as my father and mother were determined 
that their two sons and daughter should have a better 
education than was theirs. When old John Brown of 
Harper’s Ferry used to visit our little cottage, on his 
journeys to help runaway slaves from the South to 
the Canadian Line, he used to bring us papers and 
books which were within the appreciation of childhood, 
and which were very practical and helpful editions 
concerning science, history and everyday philosophy. 
Those books made our evenings much shorter and sent 
us to school to the very best university that was ever 
established. 


SCHOOL DAYS 79 


“Our modern over-emphasis of the advantage of 
schools, colleges and universities has gone to such an 
extreme now that it works a great amount of harm in 
leading the common people to think that all knowledge 
worth having is to be secured only in some highly- 
endowed university. The Abraham Lincolns, the 
Elihu Burritts and the Edisons who have made the 
greatest events in the history of mankind succeeded 
without a university training. Valuable as higher 
education and culture are to any person, yet it is a 
great mistake for a young man or woman to think that 
school instruction is all that is necessary to make a 
person of refinement, culture and learning. Experience 
is still the very best teacher and always will be; those 
schools are ever the best that use the everyday expe- 
rience; and they are the wisest men who get the most 
out of the everyday events of life and who see 
the most value and beauty in those things which are 
before them daily. Schools should help experience 
to give expression towards deeper and closer re- 
search, but, after all, the real education of life nec- 
essary to the achievement oi the grand things consists 
in the proper use of everyday chbservation and ex- 
perience. 

‘““My reading matter was the New York Tribune and 
the Bible. I place them in the correct order, wishing 
to be truthful, but my father and mother reversed them. 
There was an old book of poems—an excellent collec- 
tion—which we were allowed to read any day but 
Sunday, provided we were waiting for dinner or it 
was not bedtime. But the Bible was a well-known book. 
It entered into our conversation and its phraseology 
was the common phraseology of the cornfield. The 
spelling book had some interesting reading at the bot- 
tom of each page, although my father did not approve 


80 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


of the fables from Greek mythology, and the one 
little fairy story that we hesitated to read because 
father disapproved of it. Stolen fruit is sweetest and 
so-called poisons are sometimes nutritious. 

“My companions consisted of the farmer boys and 
girls of that sparsely-settled district. Our social life 
comprised a few evenings in the winter, when a dozen 
or more persons would gather in some farmer’s kitchen 
to pop corn, make maple sugar, play hide and seek, 
or husk corn, and sometimes—when the old folks were 
accidentally called away by a prearranged plan—the 
young people would get out a violin or mouth-organ 
and dancing of a most hilarious kind ensued. It was 
downright healthy sport. Why has the devil been 
allowed to put his alluring attributes around the 
healthiest and best expression of childhood’s life? 
We were all clumsy clowns with big feet, freckled faces 
and calloused hands, but very clever withal, and 
expressed our pleasures with a holy freedom that 
characterized the innocent childhood of that New 
England country life. 

“Our own home entertainments were occasional 
gatherings of the neighboring young people, whom my 
mother and father were always delighted to see; and 
whenever my brother or myself had the courage to 
go home with one of the girls, my mother always set 
the candle in the window to guide us home along the 
mountain roads. That ‘Light in the Window’ has 
been my permanent moral beacon, and it gleams with 
increasing brightness as the pathway of life turns 
over the ‘Great Divide.’ ” 

These friendly gatherings of which Doctor Conwell 
spoke were the usual social affairs of country life 
then—spelling bees, little parties, honey eats and 
church socials. Meetings at various homes to sing 


SCHOOL DAYS 81 


was an important part of the social life of this little 
country community. “I went down to Knightville 
to sing,’’ wrote his sister Harriet to a friend. Anda 
‘‘sing’’ at some one’s house or the church was a frequent 
event in the neighborhood. 

Russell took an active part in all the school and 
church entertainments, and his talent for organizing 
and managing showed itself early. Many were the 
entertainments he planned and carried through. Reci- 
tations, dialogues, little plays—all were presented under 
his management to the people of South Worthington. 
In one of these plays he made some additions of his 
own. He interpolated a little dialogue in which one 
of the characters is asked why he wants to go to 
heaven, and promptly replies, ‘‘Because I am afraid 
to go to hell.” 

This, Doctor Conwell says, graphically expressed his 
ideas of theology at that period of his life. It was 
not so much the desire to do right, as the fear of 
punishment, that was the motive of conduct in 
regard to the hereafter. 

He attended a Fourth of July parade in Springfield 
and was so impressed with the marching and maneuvers 
of the troops that he returned home, formed a company 
of his schoolmates, drilled and marched them as if 
they were already an important part of the G. A. R. 
He secured a book on tactics and studied it with his 
usual thoroughness and perseverance. He presented 
his company with badges; and one of the relics of these 
childhood days is a wooden sword which he made out 
of a piece of board. 

There was, of course, but little money in the home, 
and the parents could not give the children pennies 
in the lavish fashion of the parents of today. But 
they did give each child a hen, and he could have for 


82 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


his own use the pennies received from the sale of the 
eggs of his own particular fowl. 

‘‘How dear to our ears was the cackle of our hen,” 
Doctor Conwell has often said. ‘It meant a stick of 
candy at the store, a top, or some other longed-for 
possession.” 

Thus boyhood days passed with their measure of 
work and play. Money was scarce and opportunity 
limited, but Russell did not let these facts narrow life 
for him. He took front the life about him whatever 
of value it had to give and, in the crucible of the years, 
it was transmuted into material for life’s needs. 


CHAR TEREX 
Tur Puacre or Music In EDUCATION 


Doctor Conwell Tells the Value of Music in a Child’s 
Education and How He was Able to Secure It. The 
Benefit it Became to His Infe. He Makes Some 
Suggestions for Musical Programs. 


came another interest. Music laid its spell upon 

him, and its influence became felt all through Doc- 

tor Conwell’s life. It was both a source of pleasure 
to him and one of the most efficient allies to his work. 
Speaking of the value of music to life and the place it 
should have in a child’s education, Doctor Conwell 
says: 

“My musical education was a limited one; but it 
has given to me many blessings, materially increased 
my income in circumstances of need and greatly 
enlarged the enjoyment of life. It seems almost 
impossible that any person should now care what 
I did or what I learned. I fear that it is spending 
time and talent uselessly to put in a book such mat- 
ters connected with a life as private as mine. _ If, 
however, I could reach the attention of many parents 
and persuade them to give their children a musical 
education, I would feel that it was my clear duty to 
urge upon them the usefulness of such instruction.” 

In Russell’s childhood days there was, of course, 
comparatively little music in the New England homes. 
The player-piano and the Victrola were, as yet, un- 
known. The opportunity to obtain even the rudi- 


‘ (83) 


[ex the work and play of these boyhood days 


84 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


ments of a musical education seemed remote, but 
occasionally music came into his life. In the social 
affairs of friends there was singing, and music was 
sometimes a part of the few entertainments which he 
attended. And once in a while there was a parade 
at South Worthington, when there would be a band, 
which expressed music to childish ears in a truly 
wonderful fashion. 

These experiences fed the love of music within 
him, and he was always one of the singers whenever 
singing was on the program of any entertainment in 
which he took part. But singing was not enough— 
he wanted to learn to play. Fortunately the oppor- 
tunity to do so was provided him. Relating how this 
occurred and what an event it was in his life, Doctor 
Conwell says: 

“Of course, our life in the mountains did not give 
us much of an opportunity to hear fine music; and in 
my childhood it was a very rare thing for a boy or 
girl to possess a musical instrument—even a mouth- 
organ or a cornstalk fiddle. But, one day, a skilful 
salesman for the Estey Organ Company, of Brattle- 
boro, Vermont, came to visit relatives who lived in the 
valley below our farm, and he tried to sell melo- 
deons to some of the mountaineers. I could sing 
some of the old Methodist hymns, but had no hope of 
a musical education until, one day, I heard the agent 
talking with my father about the purchase of an 
Iistey melodeon. He offered to give my father a year’s 
time in which to pay for it and take pay in vegetables 
delivered at the railway station. 

“When I overheard my father mention my name in 
connection with the organ, I became greatly excited 
and held a long consultation with mother as to what 
it all meant. She made me promise that, if they pur- 


THE PLACE OF MUSIC IN EDUCATION’ 85 


chased an organ, I would devote myself carefully to 
the study of music and learn to sing ‘two or three of 
the church anthems’ which she liked to hear so much 
at the services. Father finally offered the agent a sum 
within ten dollars of the price which the agent asked 
for the instrument. There they stuck for several days 
and my nights were nearly sleepless. 

‘At last my mother called the agent to her, when 
my father was watering the cattle, and told him that 
she would pay the balance herself, if he would not 
tell father that she had promised to do so. She had 
three dollars in the old pewter teapot and, when I 
saw her give him the money, it was too much for my 
emotions and I went out back of the woodshed and 
had a good ery of joy. I never kept a secret in my 
life which was so painful to hold as the one connected 
with that organ transaction. But I am sure that my 
father never knew why the agent so suddenly came 
down in his price and made the bargain with such 
surprising cheerfulness. 

“That organ was a whole school of music to me. 
A primer in musical education and several hymn books 
completed my instruction books. But I must have 
annoyed the family greatly by my continual attempts 
to work out something worth while from that strange 
combination of musical instrumentalities. One of 
the keys of the organ stuck close in its place and 
would not respond to my touch. This led me to make 
a personal investigation of the inner construction of 
the instrument which was an education in musical 
mechanics worth more than I can now estimate. 

‘“When my mother found the organ lying around on 
the floor in small pieces, she was filled with dismay 
and said the things which the best of mothers will 
sometimes say in times of great loss and disappoint- 


86 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


ment. But, when I had succeeded in getting it together 
again in perfect order, she threw her arms around me 
and carried me out to the barn when she went to feed 
the horse—something she had never before done since 
I was old enough to remember. As soon as I began to 
understand the primary science of music, I made a 
flute for myself out of an old reed, and then worked 
two days peeling bark to purchase a second-hand 
cornet. And finally, as a culmination of my musical 
outfit, an old uncle gave me a very fine old violin 
which he had laid aside years before. 

“The only neighbor who was near enough to be 
disturbed by my various noises was a pious old widow 
who came to our cottage one day and called my father 
and mother into the sitting room and told them 
solemnly that she thought they were allowing their 
boy to go too far ‘in worldly amusements.’ I became 
somewhat confused as to whether her purpose was a 
really religious one, or whether it was very largely a 
selfish one, when she very plainly and sharply stated 
that she did not like the sound of that cornet, as it 
seemed to her to be so like ‘the call of a sick calf.’ 
So, for a while after that, out of regard to my old 
neighbor’s scruples, I was obliged to take the cornet 
into the woods when I practiced for the coming 
orchestra. 

‘“‘In a few months time I was able to play as many 
country boys usually do—roughly, somewhat out of 
tune, and more out of time.« But the girls in our 
neighborhood could dance at any noise; and it seemed 
to them that the music was very fine when several of 
us organized an orchestra for evening parties. I 
became leader of the band, learned to call the cotillions 
and prompt the country dancers, and suddenly found 
myself famous as a director of balls and evening parties, 


THE PLACE OF MUSIC IN EDUCATION 87 


I rejoice now that I was not able to play with any 
greater degree of skill than I did, as the fascination of 
the music and the flattery could easily have led me away 
entirely from the profession which I afterwards chose. 
But the ability to play various instruments well enough 
for my personal enjoyment, and the increased appre- 
ciation which it gave me for the great musical com- 
positions to which I listen now with such pleasure, 
made that Estey organ a continual stream of delight 
throughout my subsequent years.” Thus it will be 
seen that the purchase of an organ was a wise invest- 
ment on the part of Russell’s father and mother. 

In all of Doctor Conwell’s church work, music ever 
performed an important and useful part. When he 
first came to the church in Philadelphia—and for many 
years afterward—he played the organ at the prayer- 
meetings and led the singing with an earnestness and 
expressiveness that attracted many to the meetings 
solely for the enjoyment which they found in that part 
of the service. But to those who came at first only 
for the music, the spiritual truths voiced, eventually 
made their appeal and fruited in beautiful and useful 
lives. Incidentally, his love for music led to many 
episodes, both amusing and unusual, as the following 
will serve to illustrate: 

In Doctor Conwell’s early Philadelphia pastorate, 
while on a Sunday-school excursion to the seashore, he 
saw a cornet lying on a bench on the pier. Seized 
with a longing to play again this instrument of his 
boyhood, he picked it up and began softly a familiar 
air. Soon lost to his surroundings, he played on and on. 
At last, remembering where he was, he laid down the 
instrument and walked away. ‘The owner, who had 
returned, followed him and offered him, first, five dol- 
lars, and then ten, to play that night for a dance. 


88 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


The man would take no refusal, and later in the day 
hunted him up again, and did his utmost to persuade 
Doctor Conwell—not knowing who he was—to play 
that evening, pointing out to him what such an 
opportunity might mean in getting a future musical 
engagement. 

At another time, when crossing the Atlantic, the 
ship encountered a violent storm and was so dis- 
mantled as to be helpless. The fires of the engines 
were out and the boat for twenty-six days drifted at 
the mercy of the waves. No one—not even the cap- 
tain—thought they could escape destruction. During 
this time, when fear and despair ruled, Russell Con- 
well’s knowledge of music was used to a good purpose. 
He found that he could cheer the passengers by singing 
and playing and, during those long anxious days, he 
played the old-time tunes and sang familiar hymns. 
One of the hymns was: 

“One sweetly solemn thought 
Comes to me o’er and o’er; 


I’m nearer home today 
Than e’er I’ve been before.”’ 


Many years afterwards, at a religious meeting in 
New Hampshire, a woman told how in this wreck at 
sea she had been comforted and inspired with fresh 
hope by the singing of this hymn. Doctor Conwell 
was present, and the woman’s remark reminded him 
of how varied had been the services which a knowledge 
of music had enabled him to render. 

Doctor Conwell has some ideas of his own upon 
the subject of musical programs. In speaking about 
the matter, he once said: ‘‘I would like to see pro- 
grams, or even parts of programs, for musical enter- 
tainments planned with some one thought in mind— 
music that inspired, for instance. Under this head 


THE PLACE OF MUSIC IN EDUCATION _ 89 


could come music that bas to do with home life, per- 
haps; or music that expresses patriotism. There are 
many classes into which music can be divided. And 
it seems to me that, if a concert occasionally were 
planned to bring out some one thought that is close 
to the heart of humanity, such a program would be 
interesting, enjoyable and inspiring.” 

His mother’s sympathy with his love for music, and 
her self-sacrificing efforts to develop it, thus brought 
to Russell Conwell a source of usefulness and pleasure 
aimost incalculable in their results. In regard to the 
importance of the study of music when young, a man 
known internationally in the world of music, says: 

‘The way to love music and to increase its produc- 
tion, is to know it when you are young—young indi- 
vidually and young as a nation. It is much more 
difficult to prepare people to enjoy music after they are 
grown up and their minds have become crowded with 
the various interests of life. The American nation 
should not let its youth slip by without filling the 
souls of the children with music. 

‘““As yet, the young people here do not have their 
minds directed definitely enough in musical channels. 
I do not see groups of children standing about a piano 
in the twilight and singing to a mother’s accompani- 
ment. I do not see the boys of the neighborhood 
forming a small orchestra and playing really fine music, 
as they do in France and Germany. Music is some- 
thing more than mere entertainment. It is a serious 
and permanent joy in life. It keeps the emotions 
stirred and the imagination young.” 

This course had been adopted to some extent in the 
Berkshire district of New England, and the value of 
it—in at least one man’s life—is proved by Doctor 
Conwell’s career. 


CHAPTER X 
ScHooLt Days AT WILBRAHAM 


Earning the Money to Go. Working His Way 
Through. His Studies. Doctor Conwell Describes 
His First Public Debate There, Its Ignominious 
Failure and the Value of Debating Societies. His 
Work as a Book Canvasser. 


in the district schoolhouse which had an im- 

portant bearing upon Russell Conwell’s life. 

All the neighborhood was there—both young 
and old—as entertainments were not very numerous 
in those days and everybody went to the few that 
were offered. 

Although only fourteen years old, Russell was one 
of the debaters. He was tall for his age; spoke with 
ease; had taken part in many of the neighborhood 
entertainments; and so did not seem so young as he 
really was, nor out of place in debating with those older 
than himself. 

Among the audience was Asa Niles, an ex-preacher, 
eousin of Martin Conwell, and friend of the family. 
He listened thoughtfully to Russell’s argument; to 
his quickness in answering his opponents; to his clever - 
thrusts and his ready replies. He observed, with 
experienced eyes, the boy’s ease on the platform—his 
natural, forceful gestures; and the attention and inter- 
est of the audience. 

The next morning Niles went over to the Conwell 
home. At the house, Miranda Conwell told him that 

(90) . 


():: spring evening, in 1857, a debate took place 


SCHOOL DAYS AT WILBRAHAM 91 


both her husband and Russell were out in the field 
planting potatoes. He chatted with her a few min- 
utes about the entertainment of the evening before and 
commented on Russell’s part in it. When he reached 
the field he paused for a few moments to speak to the 
boy; then he went on to where the father was working. 

Doctor Conwell says that he can remember now the 
scene—his father leaning upon his hoe and Mr. Niles 
earnestly talking to him. The boy did not know what 
the conversation was about; but he was impressed 
with the earnestness of Mr. Niles and the attention 
with which his father listened. 

Mr. Niles was telling Martin Conwell that his son 
had talents which it was a duty to develop; that, with 
education and training, he would undoubtedly make a 
speaker—perhaps a preacher—the ambition dear to 
Martin Conwell’s heart. Niles rehearsed the points 
he had noticed in the debate of the evening before 
that would confirm this conclusion, and he drew upon 
his own experience to prove to the father the truth 
of what he was saying. 

Martin Conwell promised to talk the matter over 
with his wife, which he did. They both knew the 
value of an education and wanted to give their son 
every help possible toward a useful life. They were 
desirous that he should be a preacher, but the outlook 
appeared to be hopeless. ‘They felt it would be par- 
tiality to give one child more than another and, if 
Russell went away to school, Charles ought to go also; 
but they could see no way to send either. The money 
for board, tuition and clothes seemed utterly beyond 
hope of acquiring. However, they were a family 
strongly knit together in all their interests and, before 
deciding against the project, they took the boys into 
their confidence. 


92 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


To Russell—stirred by his reading and his runaway 
experiences to a consuming hunger for more knowl- 
edge—the fact that his parents were considering the 
matter of his going away to school brought such joy 
and determination to achieve it that he said at once 
he would in some way earn the money. Charles 
heartily agreed. The parents were willing for them 
to make the effort and agreed that they could go if 
they had the money by fall. 

Then began in that little home work such as it had 
not yet seen. The father toiled earlier and later that 
the boys might earn money by helping the nearby 
farmers. ‘The mother took in more sewing, stitched 
farther into the night, and rose earlier in the morning 
that the day might be longer. Hattie relieved her 
mother of the housework as much as possible and even 
helped with such sewing as childish fingers could per- 
form, that more money might be earned. Thus the 
whole family pulled together that the opportunity to 
know more of life might be given to the boys. 

“Tt was an earnest time,’ says Doctor Conwell, 
speaking of these days. ‘I thought continually of 
what it would mean to go away to school. After my 
runaway trip to Europe I had determined to get an 
education, for I saw what it meant to life, but I had 
not seen the way to do it. Now the way was opening 
and I was sure I would be able to make the money; 
yet at times the thought, that perhaps I couldn’t, 
would come over me and overwhelm me with darkness 
and despair. 

“Charles Sumner often passed our house. I had 
read and heard much about him and, as I watched 
his carriage roll slowly along the road, I would think 
how I would like to do the sort of work he was doing 
in the world. A great longing would seize me to do 


SCHOOL DAYS AT WILBRAHAM 93 


something worth while with my life, and then I would 
go to work more determined than ever to earn what 
was needed.” 

Of course, such a spirit brought victory. By fall 
the necessary money was acquired and the two boys 
entered Wilbraham Academy, which was situated 
about forty miles from their home. 

Wilbraham Academy was at that time the most 
popular educational institution in that section of the 
East. It was, in fact, the only college preparatory 
school in New England belonging to the Methodist 
denomination and, of course, was a great favorite 
with those of that religious persuasion. It was, accord- 
ing to its charter, ‘‘established for the purpose of pro- 
moting religion and morality and the education of 
youth,” and stood high in the regard of the people of 
New England. Its students came not only from 
Massachusetts but from adjoining states. 

A life very different from any he had ever known 
now opened for young Conwell. He was one of sev- 
eral hundred students that thronged the streets of 
Wilbraham, overflowed the boarding houses, and filled 
the classrooms. ‘To be thrown into this eager, throb- 
bing young life as part of it—and to find a place in 
it—caused the young student to experience a host of 
new sensations. He had to stand alone among stran- 
gers and prove himself. The situation brought new 
adjustments and an awakening in many ways. 

Russell Conwell, the student, is described by his class- 
mates as a tall, lanky, rather awkward youth, but 
always good-natured and laughing. Speaking of this 
period of his life, Doctor Conwell himself says: “I 
was very bashful and so poorly dressed that I kept 
in the background as much as possible.” 

He rented a meagerly furnished room in the home 


94 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


of Henry Brewer, and in it he and his brother slept 
and cooked their meals. A number of the students 
boarded in the same house. Russell was regarded as 
the life of the place because he played jokes; had 
jokes played upon him; organized ‘‘Sings” and gen- 
erally kept things stirring. He was also a favorite 
outside the boarding house. ‘The boys of the school 
formed a company for the study of army drills and 
maneuvers and elected him as drillmaster. He made 
a careful study of the Manual of Arms of the United 
States Army and thoroughly taught and drilled the 
command of students under him. 

Russell’s personality made him very popular among 
his fellow students and he was warmly welcomed 
when he could find time to mingle with them, but he 
did not have many opportunities for social affairs. 
Although he had earned enough to enter the academy 
at Wilbraham, he had to work hard while there, in 
order to continue his studies. He gathered nuts, dug 
potatoes, cut and shocked corn for the nearby farm- 
ers, and was always on the alert for any ‘‘job” that 
would bring him a few dollars. ‘There were days when 
he did not have a nickel and, at one time, he and his 
brother lived for weeks on cornmeal mush. 

Though Russell was good-natured and well-liked by 
his fellow students, there was a grim side to his life 
at Wilbraham. ‘The constant endeavor to make ends 
meet; the lack of nourishing, palatable food for a 
growing, hard-working boy; the pressure to master 
his lessons in the time left from work; the home-made, 
shabby clothes in contrast to the well-dressed appear- 
ance of many of his classmates—all of these things 
made a somber, reverse side to the picture. But 
despite these handicaps he made an excellent impres- 
sion, not only among his classmates but in the 
classroom. 


SCHOOL DAYS AT WILBRAHAM 95 


The studies of that period were the common Eng- 
lish branches, for which the tuition charge was four 
dollars and a half a month; and mental and moral 
science, rhetoric, mathematics, philosophy, botany, 
astronomy and geology, for each of which an extra 
charge of seventy-five cents a month was made. 
Bookkeeping, which was one dollar a month; ancient 
and modern languages, which were a dollar and a half 
each a month; and lectures at one dollar a month, 
were also part of the curriculum. This method of 
payment is somewhat different from that in vogue 
today, but there was a flexibility about it that made 
it adjustable to a student’s needs. 

The text-books of those old days, too, are interest- 
ing and include Andrew and Stoddard’s Latin grammar, 
Robinson’s algebra, Greenleaf’s arithmetic, Goodrich’s 
history, Cutter’s physiology, Caldwell’s elocution, 
Jamieson’s rhetoric, Upham’s mental philosophy, and 
Wayland’s moral science and political economy. 

The buildings of the Wilbraham Academy were of 
brick, ivy-mantled and, at the time young Conwell 
attended, consisted of the Old Academy, Fisk Hall 
and Binney Hall. They stood back from the street 
on rising ground that swept on in gradual slopes to 
distant hills. Beautiful trees surrounded the build- 
ings and crowned the slopes; and the effect of this 
great stretch of lawn with its trees and simple, digni- 
fied buildings and its background of wooded hills was 
very impressive and restful. Young Conwell often 
paced these wooded slopes for hours when studying 
his lessons. More attractive to him than classrooms 
or campus, however, was the library. In speaking of 
these early school days, Doctor Conwell says: 

“The library was a most fascinating place. I had 
never seen so many books before in all my life. It 


96 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


was such a feast to me that I simply could not remain 
away from them. I would keep from fifteen to twenty 
books in my room at one time, and every spare moment 
I had I would devote to them.” 

From these readings grew essays that attracted the 
attention of the professors. One in particular was 
on the creation of the world. Russell had found a 
book with rather a novel theory on this subject that 
had fired his imagination. He had searched for more 
information and, having read all that he could find 
on the subject, he wrote the results of his research 
with various deductions of his own. ‘The paper caused 
much comment and he was invited to the homes of 
several of the professors to discuss further the theories 
which he had advanced. 

But young Conwell’s chief delight was in the debat- 
ing societies of the institution. There were two of 
these, the Old Club and the Union Philosophical 
Society—‘‘ Philo”? as it was commonly called. There 
was of course much rivalry between them. ‘ Philo’ 
prided itself upon being composed of thinkers, and the 
members of the Old Club vaunted themselves as not 
only thinking but expressing. 

Russell joined the Old Club, which is claimed to be 
the oldest society of its kind in a preparatory school 
in the United States, having been founded in 1826. 
Its members say it has been of great value in train- 
ing the students at Wilbraham in public speaking; 
and one of his classmates said of Conwell, ‘‘This 
debating society was just the stimulus he needed to 
waken and deepen and train his natural gift of 
oratory.” Debating societies were not new to him, 
but this one was a very different affair from the home 
organization, as he found to his sorrow the night of 
his first debate. 


SCHOOL DAYS AT WILBRAHAM 97 


“My first attempt at ‘a set speech learned by 
heart,’;”’ he says, “‘was when I attended the Wilbraham 
Academy in Massachusetts, in 1857, and when I had 
been made a member of the debating team at one of 
the ordinary meetings of the society. Never did 
ambassador to foreign court, or a newly-elected Presi- 
dent of the United States, feel the appreciation of his 
honors more than I did when I saw my name on the 
written poster placed on the bulletin board at the 
door of the society. 1 walked through the pastures 
and forests and the valleys and mountains around 
Wilbraham before school and sometimes after church, 
and recited over and over the speech which I had 
carefully written out for the occasion. 

‘‘So long did I practice upon it that it seemed impos- 
sible for me to make a mistake; and my confidence in 
myself was quite strong when the hour for the debate 
arrived. But I sat trembling and bathed in perspira- 
tion while listening to the other speakers, and found 
that some things in my speech would need to be 
omitted, because of what had previously been said. 
When the time came for me to take my place at the 
debating table a great ‘horror of darkness’ came over 
my brain. My heart beat painfully strong and I lost 
‘entire control of my voice. 

‘‘T remember that I said, ‘Mr. President,’ and then 
began to stammer and tremble. Finally I quoted 
something which all school boys probably used then 
in their first orations, and which I had practiced upon so 
as to deliver with great effect, and I shouted, ‘Give me 
liberty or give me death;’ then I sat down, but in a 
moment rushed out of the room into the dark where 
I found some comfort in the society of two horses 
which had been hitched to the fence by some person 
who might have been attending the debate. Speaking 


98 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


in that clubroom was very different from addressing 
the neighbors at home. For many months I could 
not be persuaded to try it again until brought out, 
unexpectedly, from my positive retreat by being called 
upon to say something at a funeral of one of the boys, 
who had been my playmate at school. ‘The ease with 
which I did that without any previous preparation 
warned me that, if I would succeed, I must be very 
careful to be natural. 

“Hence, in my life’s work, I have never written a 
lecture or a sermon and have dictated my books, 
And while I can see that I have often made failures 
which cause me to blush after many years, yet, with 
my native eccentricity, I could have done nothing if 
I had attempted to read my addresses. I most 
decidedly approve of writing out addresses and ser- 
mons and have listened to many a reader with deep 
fascination. But, for myself, I have been unable to 
accomplish anything further, or more polished, than 
in doing my best in what is called extemporaneous 
speech.” ' 

Despite his first unfortunate experience, Doctor 
Conwell thoroughly believed in debating societies. 
“Free debate, where a boy or girl is prompted to make 
his best endeavor to persuade his hearers, is the best 
kind of oratorical instruction,” he says. ‘* Enuncia- 
tion, pronunciation, voice culture and gestures are, of 
course, important; but they are often so magnified 
by the student that they are factors which destroy his 
usefulness in public speech. In conversation once 
with Mr. Wendell Phillips, this great anti-slavery 
orator said that his most useful instruction was found 
in such a free debating society and under the same 
embarrassing circumstances which characterized the 
training of Daniel Webster in the old district school in 
New Hampshire.”’ 








THE OLD DOOR-STEP, WILBRAHAM ACADEMY 


DEEPLY WORN BY THE FEET OF THOUSANDS OF STUDENTS 





THE CAMPUS, WILBRAHAM ACADEMY 


SHADED BY ANCIENT ELMS 


SCHOOL DAYS AT WILBRAHAM 99 


That Russell Conwell was a firm believer in the 
benefits of the Old Club and a loyal member is shown 
by the fact that he marched the eight-year-old son of 
the Brewer home up to the club one night and had him 
enrolled, not only that he might be benefited by the 
club meetings, but that he might not in the years to 
come swell the membership of the rival club. 

During his second year at Wilbraham young Conwell 
was appointed to teach elocution and reading—an 
unusual honor at that time for a student. It meant 
much to him financially, for it was quite a help towards 
paying his expenses. He was compelled to leave college 
during the third term and teach school in order to get 
the money to continue. He kept up his studies, how- 
ever, and did not drop behind his class. 

Russell also earned money during the last term at 
Wilbraham by selling the biography of John Brown, 
which had been published by James Redpath of Bos- 
ton soon after the execution of Brown. Young Conwell 
was quite successful with this book, the sale of which 
also brought him other profits than money. In this 
work he began what might be called his first systematic 
course of public addresses. He obtained permission 
from the school authorities in the districts which he 
visited to speak to the school children upon the life 
of John Brown; and he visited regularly the various 
schools throughout that part of Massachusetts and 
delivered addresses upon the life of the man whom 
he had known as a boy, and who struck the first blow 
for the freedom of the slaves. This method of selling 
books is a good sidelight on the originality which has 
ever been a part of the Conwell method of doing things. 

“Why did you address the school children?” was 
asked him when he was telling of his early work. 
“You didn’t expect them to buy the book, did you?” 


7 


100 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


“No,” he replied, with a twinkle in his eye; “but 
children do the best advertising in the world. In the 
course of my address, I always remarked that I had 
a book for sale that told a great deal more about this 
unique man than I could recall in the few minutes at 
my disposal. They would go home and enthusiastically 
tell their parents what they had heard; and when I 
arrived, my book and my errand were known—often 
eagerly awaited—and the sale was an easy matter. 
When you get the child-in the home on your side, you 
have a good ally.” 

Russell Conwell graduated from Wilbraham in 1859, 
and his name was down on the program of the gradu- 
ating exercises for a song, “The Fine Old Irish 
Gentleman,” and a declamation. The two years at 
Wilbraham had been prolific in many ways. He had 
made a good record in his studies and had acquired 
ereater proficiency in public speaking. He was a 
favorite with teachers and students, and had many 
warm friends among his classmates. But the most 
Inspiring result was that starting practically with- 
out money or influence he had won the education that 
had been his objective and also many warm friends 
among teachers and students. This fact had more 
real life-substance in it for future needs than mere 
book learning. 


CHAPTER XI 
CoLLEGE Days aT YALE 


His Struggle to Get Through College. The Humilia- 
tion of those Days. A Dip into Atheism. 


the various students, there was much discussion 

among them about going to college. The 

value of a college education, the choice of a 
career and the purpose of life were flippantly or gravely 
talked over by these boys and girls, as the boys and 
girls of this age the world over have discussed these 
questions. The merits and demerits of different col- 
leges and universities were described with the frankness 
of the outspoken, youthful mind. 

Many of the students at Wilbraham had relatives 
at college. The faculties of the various institutions, 
the records of the graduates, the expenses of attend- 
ance—all the minutize of life there came under the 
microscopic eye of the youth at Wilbraham for 
dissection. 

Russell Conwell listened with an attentive ear. He 
had determined to go to college, because his two years 
at Wilbraham had shown him the need of a more 
complete education than the academy could give. 
No matter how hard the fight might be to secure this, 
he saw that it would be better to make the struggle 
than to go through life with his education incomplete. 

His first need was to find the college best suited to 
his circumstances. He, therefore, kept an open ear 
to all the discussions that went on about him as to the 

(101) 


AN school days at Wilbraham drew to a close for 


102 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


various colleges, their methods and standing. Thus 
he learned from fellow students whose brothers or 
other relatives had studied at Yale, and from pro- 
fessors at Wilbraham who were graduates of Yale or 
familiar with it, that the faculty at Yale were friendly 
to the poor boy and would often help him outside of 
school hours with his studies. It was this information 
that decided him to go to Yale. From all he had 
heard, he believed that the friendless poor boy had a 
better chance at Yale than at some of the other uni- 
versities. And so Yale became his choice. 

Russell Conwell entered Yale in 1860. He rented 
a room across the street from the New Haven Hotel 
and secured a position at the hotel as assistant to the 
steward. His work began at half-past four in the morn- 
ing, and his duties were to help with the marketing, 
make the dining-room ready for meals, aid in the prepa- 
ration of vegetables and assist with any other work 
that came within the province of the steward. For this 
service he received “left over” food. Therefore he had 
to work at other things in order to earn enough for his 
room rent, his tuition and clothes, and, as at Wilbraham, 
he took any job he could get. 

But Russell found himself in a very different atmos- 
phere from that at Wilbraham. ‘There was at Yale a 
stronger contrast between the rich students and the 
poor students; and much greater wealth was in evi- 
dence. There was also a larger number of students, 
and the friendly atmosphere of the little New England 
town with its long, elm-shaded street, its little white 
houses and its student camaraderie was lacking. 
Then, too, it took more money for the expenses at 
Yale, and this entailed more work. 

Hence Russell Conwell was little known among his 
classmates at Yale. He was sensitive, and it was a 


COLLEGE DAYS AT YALE 103 


great humiliation to him to go about in cheap, shabby 
clothes, his coat sleeves and trousers frayed as, he 
says, was often the case. He had the natural, boyish 
desire to look well and to take part in the usual gayeties 
of student life. He saw all about him happy, care-free 
boys of his own age, well dressed, with money for 
parties, for horses and carriages and for club life. But 
he had no money for any of these things and so 
he never touched this side of college life. He came and 
went to the classes solitary and friendless. He joined 
no clubs and he took no part in debates. He worked 
hard and studied hard. ‘‘Silent as a sphinx,” those 
of his classmates at Yale, who remember him, describe 
him. This was not his natural temperament; it was 
but the result of the conditions about him. For the 
first time in his life, perhaps, he became introspec- 
tive and he lived intensively instead of in the world 
about him. 

This isolation from the social life of the other college 
students had one good result. It enabled Russell 
Conwell to accomplish more in his studies than other- 
wise he would have been able to do. _ He found pro- 
fessors who were willing to help him outside of school 
hours, and he took two courses—the classical course 
and the law course—at the same time. It is a feat 
that few students have ever accomplished. ‘That he 
did it, in addition to the work he was compelled to 
do to pay his way, shows with what intensity he studied 
and at what a white heat burned his desire for an edu- 
cation. Nothing could stand against his resolve. All 
obstacles fell before it. He had proved before—in 
smaller ways—what determination will do. The 
principle, he found, held good as he went into larger 
things. 

This absorbing ambition to get an education helped 


104 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


young Conwell in another way. It carried him safely 
past temptations which—had his mind been less cen- 
tered upon one object—might, in his entire isolation 
from the usual social life of the young, have laid hold 
upon him. But life just then had for him but one 
object—the reaching out for greater fulfilment; and 
so, for him, the evils of the college town did not exist. 

But the humiliations he suffered; the contrast he saw 
between the rich and poor; the thought of the poverty 
and toil of his God-fearing father and mother and the 
wealth and ease of many who had no regard for a so- 
called all-powerful Deity, together with some of his 
studies, gave him the drift toward atheism that 
developed at this period of his life. 

Church-going had been torture to Russell. Ashismind 
went back to those long hours in the little meeting 
house at home, where he had to keep awake or be 
whipped, his reason revolted at believing any good 
could be evolved from so much misery. Nor could he 
see that his parents had gained anything by their 
faith. About him were many who had no such belief 
as theirs, yet were in far better circumstances. He 
had no deep understanding of the vital principles 
underlying religion. His church-going had not given 
him these, and life so far had brought no experience 
to make him grip the unseen. So he decided there 
was no God. 

As his life beeame more solitary—his brother Charles, 
who had at first come to Yale with him, secured a 
position as secretary to Professor Agassiz at Harvard, 
and went to Boston—he grew more bitter and cynical 
and took delight in studying the Bible to find material 
to support his views. In fact, he became known among 
his classmates as an atheist. This little dip into atheism 
might have given an undesirable twist to his character, 


COLLEGE DAYS AT YALE 105 


had the beliefs which: he entertained become firmly 
rooted. But what his mind was actually, if uncon- 
sciously, seeking was truth. Tennyson tells us: 


‘There is more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds.” 


Russell’s search for truth was not in itself evil; evil 
did not, in the final course, come from it, and some 
good did. In later years, the experience helped him 
to view sympathetically and understandingly the same 
attitude in others. It did even more than this. When 
he entered upon his ministry, it enabled him to see the 
necessity of making the truths of religion overshadow 
its forms and of bringing them vitally and practically 
into everyday living. 

The experience left temporarily its impress upon him. 
The Russell Conwell of Yale, scoffing, somewhat cynical, 
was different from the ‘‘good-natured boy, always 
laughing,” of Wilbraham. But since the change meant 
that depths of his nature were being stirred which had 
not yet been roused, these two years at Yale were 
not without profit in ways other than in the education 
gained. 


CHAPTER XII 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 


A Visit to New York. Doctor Conwell Gives His 
First Impressions of Henry Ward Beecher and Lin- 
coln. Speeches for Enlistment. 


Russell Conwell’s studies, as it did upon the 

studies of many another young man at that 

time. As strong as was his longing for an 
education, the call to arms was to him a higher call 
than the one to serve self. It was a call to help 
humanity; to stand—as his father had stood—for 
justice. 

When Fort Sumter fell and the first blaze of war 
flamed up, memories of boyhood came with a rush— 
John Brown and his death; the cowering slaves he 
had seen in the woodshed; the discussions he had 
heard in the home; and his father’s fatigue, perils 
and fearlessness in the cause of the runaway negroes. 

The war itself would probably have been enough 
to rouse one of his temperament; but with such asso- 
ciations and memories, the call to arms brought a 
double appeal. And he had a still more recent pic- 
ture to stir him to action. Speaking of this incident, 
which occurred but a short time before the war broke 
out, Doctor Conwell says: 

‘In 1860, when my elder brother and myself were 
teaching school, we were asked to go to Brooklyn with 
the body of a lady who had died near our schools. 
We went to Brooklyn on Saturday and, after the 

(106) 


[ bloody conflict of the sixties broke in upon 


THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 107 


funeral, our friends asked us to stay over Sunday, 
saying that they would take us to hear Henry Ward 
Beecher. ‘That was a great inducement, because my 
father read the Tribune every Sunday morning after 
his Bible, and sometimes before it, and what Henry 
Ward Beecher said my father thought ‘was law and 
Gospel.’ Sunday night we went to Plymouth Church, 
and there was a large crowd an hour before the service; 
and when the doors were opened we were forced up the 
stairs and thrust back into a dirty corner where we could 
not see. Oh, yes, that is the way they treat the boys— 
put them any place—they’re only boys! I remember 
the disappointment of that night when we went there 
more to see than to hear. But finally Mr. Beecher 
appeared and announced his text. JI remember that 
I did not pay very much attention to it. 

“Tn the middle of the sermon Mr. Beecher began in 
the strangest way to auction off a woman, ‘How much 
am. I offered for this woman?’ he yelled. I remember 
standing up on tip-toes to look for that figurative 
woman who was being sold. After he had finished, 
and after the singing of the hymn, he said, ‘Brethren, 
be seated,’ and then said, ‘Sam, come here.’ <A col- 
ored boy came up trembling and stood beside him. 
‘This boy is offered for seven hundred and seventy 
dollars. He is owned in South Carolina and has run 
away. His master offers him to me for seven hundred 
and seventy dollars, and now, if the officers of the 
church will pass the plates, the boy shall be set free.’ 
When the plates were returned, over seventeen hundred 
dollars was on them! 

“T shall never forget that scene. The awfulness of 
selling human flesh and blood came over me over- 
poweringly. I understood, better than I ever had 
before, my father’s determination to help runaway 


108 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


slaves and John Brown’s willingness to give his life, 
if necessary, to free them. 

“The night after we went to hear Henry Ward 
Beecher’s great sermon, there was to be a lecture at 
Cooper Institute, a parade of political clubs, and some 
fireworks. Our friend wanted us to stay, so, as country 
boys, easily influenced, we decided that the schools could 
wait for another day, and we remained for the pro- 
cession. We went to Cooper Institute and there was 
as great a crowd there as at Beecher’s church. We 
finally got on the stairway and far in the rear of the 
great crowd. My brother stood on the floor and I 
sat on the ledge of the high window sill, with my feet 
on his shoulders. And he held me that way while I 
told him down there what was going on over yonder. 

“The first man that came on the platform and pre- 
sided at that meeting was William Cullen Bryant, our 
dear old neighbor. When we boys in a strange city 
saw that familiar face, oh, the emotions that arose in 
our hearts! How proud we were that he, our neighbor, 
was presiding on that occasion. He took his seat on 
the stage, the right of which had been left vacant for 
some one yet to come. Next came a very heavy man 
who was immediately followed by a tall, lean man. 
Mr. Bryant arose smiling and went toward him bowing. 
He was an awkward man and all about me people 
were asking, ‘Who is that?’ But no one seemed to 
know. I asked a gentleman who that man was, but 
he said he did not know. He was an awkward 
specimen, indeed. One leg of his trousers was about 
two inches above his shoe; his hair was disheveled 
and stuck out like a rooster’s feathers; his coat was 
altogether too large for him in the back; his arms 
were much longer than his sleeves and with his legs 
twisted around the rungs of the chair, he was a perfect 
picture of embarrassment. 


THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 109 


“When Mr. Bryant arose to introduce the speaker 
of that evening the latter was known to few, seem- 
ingly, in that great hall. Mr. Bryant said, ‘Gentle- 
men of New York, you have your favorite son in Mr. 
Seward and if he were to be President of the 
United States, every one of us would be proud of him.’ 
Then came great applause and Bryant continued, 
‘Ohio has her favorite son in Judge Wade, and the 
nation would prosper under his administration; but, 
gentlemen of New York, it is a great honor that is 
conferred upon me tonight, for I can introduce to you 
the next President of the United States—Abraham 
Lincoln.’ Then through that great audience flew the 
query as to whom Abraham Lincoln was. There was 
but weak applause. 

“Mr. Lincoln had in his hand a manuscript. He 
had written it with great care and exactness, and the 
speech which appears in his official biography is the 
one that he wrote—not the one that he delivered, as 
I recall it—and it is fortunate for the country that the 
newspapers printed the one that he had written. I 
think the one that he wrote had been set up in type 
that afternoon from his manuscript, and consequently 
the editors of the newspapers did not go over it to see 
whether it had been changed or not. Lincoln read 
three pages of his speech and had gone on to the fourth 
when he lost his place, and began to tremble and 
stammer. He finally turned the manuscript over two 
or three times, threw it upon the table and ‘let him- 
self go,’ as they say in the West. 

“Then the stammering man, who had created only 
silent derision up to that point, suddenly flashed out 
into an angel of oratory, and the awkward arms and 
disheveled hair were lost sight of entirely in the wonder- 
ful beauty and lofty inspiration of that magnificent 


110 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


address. The immense audience immediately began 
to follow his thought and, when he uttered that quota- 
tion from Douglas, ‘It is written on the sky of America 
that the slaves shall some day be free,’ the applause 
was so great that the building trembled and I felt the 
windows shake behind me. I thought of the auction 
of the night before. Here, too, was a man enlisted in 
the cause of freeing. the slaves. JI went home from 
that visit to New York strangely stirred.” 

It is little wonder that, with these memories stirring 
him and his disposition always to put into instant 
action his desires, Russell immediately threw aside his 
books and enlisted in the army. But he was only 
seventeen and when his father learned of this action, 
he went to the recruiting officer and had Russell’s 
name stricken from the roll. When the first troops 
marched away young Conwell, much to his disappoint- 
ment, was not among them. 

But he did not lose interest in the stirring events of 
those times and, although he continued his studies, he 
spoke whenever called upon to induce men to enlist. 
So eloquent was Russell in this cause that he became 
known throughout all that part of New England. He 
was in demand everywhere for recruiting purposes and, 
when it was known that ‘‘the boy” was going to speak, 
crowds flocked to the recruiting hall and there was 
sure to be a large enlistment. Writing of these days, 
Mr. Elzur Hayden, afterward Russell Conwell’s 
father-in-law, says: 

“Mr. Conwell and myself attended a war meeting 
last night.and he made a speech that was eulogized 
by all. A young lady made a bouquet for the occa- 
sion and, at the close of the meeting, it was voted to 
give it to Russell. So the lady presented it to him.” 
Writing later to his daughter, who was at Wilbraham 
at school, Mr. Hayden says: 


THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 111 


“They had a war meeting at the Park last Saturday 
evening, when Conwell and Heath entertained the 
audience for some time by their eloquence and witti- 
cism. They were lionized by all. The ladies especially 
were all in love with R. H. A man who was a witness 
said that when he took the stand they showered bou- 
quets all around him. At this demonstration he wilted 
like a cabbage leaf in the July sun and sat down. Heath 
kept up the excitement in his off-hand way until Russell 
came to. Then he got up and made some apology for 
thinking to entertain such a large assembly, being 
nothing but a boy with a juvenile mind, addressing 
superior and gray-headed veterans. But all at once 
the fire of eloquence began to burn and waxed hotter 
and hotter, until they were led by him strangely, so 
a good man told me in Westfield.” 

Another friend of this period says: ‘‘His youthful 
oratory was a wonderful thing which drew crowds of 
excited listeners wherever he went. Towns sent for him 
to help raise their quotas of soldiers; and ranks speedily 
filled before his inspiring and patriotic speeches. In 
1862, I remember a scene at Whitman Hall in West- 
field, Massachusetts, which none who were there can 
forget. Russell had delivered two addresses . there 
before. On that night there were two addresses before 
his, by prominent lawyers, but there was evident 
impatience to hear ‘the boy.’ When he came for- 
ward there was the most deafening applause. He 
really seemed inspired by miraculous powers. Every 
auditor was fascinated and held closely bound. ‘There 
was for a time breathless suspense and then, at some 
telling sentence, the whole building shook with wild 
applause. At its close a shower of bouquets from 
hundreds of ladies carpeted the stage in a moment, 
and men from all parts of the hall rushed forward to 
enlist.” 


CHAPTER: XIII 
GOING TO WaR 


Enlisting. Raising Troops. Hvis Election as Cap- 
tain and Presentation of Sword. Doctor Conwell’s 
Letter Home Describing His First Engagement. 


Conwell’s studies suffered, but he did not greatly 

care. The call had come to larger living than the 

world of books afforded, though at one time that 
world had seemed so big. The news of battles; of 
friends and neighbors who had fallen or were wounded; 
the letters from the front that classmates received; the 
addresses made at war meetings; the excitement of 
the rush for enlistment that followed—all swept his 
thoughts to wider horizons than campus or classroom. 
The achieving of purely personal ambitions seemed 
small. The principles at stake were rousing men to 
heroic sacrifices, and he could not hold his mind to the 
message of a text-book, nor occupy his hands with 
catering to the patrons of the New Haven Hotel. 

It is little wonder, then, that when Lincoln’s urgent 
call came in 1862 for a hundred thousand men, Conwell 
could not longer be held back. ‘The father yielded to 
his son’s insistent plea, and the boy was allowed to 
enlist. He immediately went to work raising a com- 
pany from among the men of the Berkshires. He 
spoke at Huntington, Blandford, Worthington, Russell 
and other nearby towns, and there was a rush to enlist 
under him. 

The company became known as the ‘Mountain 

(112) 


|: the excitement of those days naturally Russell 


GOING TO WAR 113 


Boys,” and Russell was unanimously elected captain. 
He was but nineteen—an unusual age for an officer— 
but a committee waited upon Governor Andrews and 
laid the case before him; told him of young Conwell’s 
success as a recruiting officer; of his popularity and 
the sort of man he was; and the Governor gave him 
his commission. ‘The news was received with satis- 
faction by both young and old. The younger mem- 
bers of the company were openly enthusiastic; the 
older, quietly content. The latter felt a sense of 
guardianship over “‘the boy” that added to the pleas- 
ure of serving under him. It was an enthusiastic and 
united company that marched away under his leader- 
ship. In regard to his enlistment Doctor Conwell says: 

‘““My brother and I enlisted as private soldiers in 
the Forty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia; and, 
although my brother insisted upon continuing as a 
private soldier, when I was offered promotion I accepted 
with pride the position as captain of Company F, when 
elected as its leader by the ‘Mountain Boys,’ whose 
homes were in the Highlands of Hampshire County. 
Although I was personally engaged in very few of the 
important battles of the war and had upon the whole 
a very easy military life, yet I was sustained during 
the privations which we endured and the lonely mon- 
otony of our camp life by the frequent messages from 
my home, and by the statement in my sister’s letter 
that father mentioned us by name at every morning 
prayer. Many of my soldiers were pupils in the school 
where I had taught; some of them were old men from 
my own neighborhood, and two of my uncles were 
among the number.” 

Before going into camp at Springfield, a banquet 
was arranged for the men at Springfield. It was at 
this banquet that Russell Conwell was given the sword 


] 


114 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


that has played such an important part in his life. It 
bore this inscription: ‘‘Presented to Captain Russell 
H. Conwell by the soldiers of Company F, Massa- 
chusetts Volunteer Militia, known as the ‘Mountain 
Boys.’ Vera Amicitia est sempiterna (True Friend- 
ship is eternal).”’ 

A flagpole had been erected in an open space and 
around this staff had been built the platform for the 
presentation ceremony. Ranged about were the men. 
Colonel Shurtleff made -the speech of presentation. 
The eloquent reply of the boy captain is yet remem- 
bered by those who heard it. He received the beauti- 
ful, glittering weapon in silence. Slowly he drew the 
gleaming steel from its sheath and solemnly held it 
upward, as if dedicating it to heaven, the sunlight 
bathing the blade with blinding flashes of light. His 
eyes were fixed upon the steel. Silence fell upon his 
waiting comrades. ‘Thus, for a few moments he stood, 
and then he spoke to the sword: 

‘“‘He called up the shade of the sword of that mighty 
warrior Joshua,’ wrote one who had heard the address, 
“which purified a polluted land with libations of blood, 
and made it fit for the heritage of God’s people; the 
sword of David, that established the kingdom of Israel; 
the sword of that resistless conqueror, Alexander, that 
pierced the heart of the Orient; the Roman short 
sword, the terrible gladius, that carved out for the 
Cesars the sovereignty of the world; the sword of 
Charlemagne, writing its master’s glorious deeds in 
mingling chapters of fable and history; the sword of 
Gustavus Adolphus, smiting the battalions of the 
puissant Wallenstein with defeat and overthrow, even 
when its master lay dead on the field of Lutzen; the 
sword of Washington, drawn for human freedom and 
sheathed in peace, honor and victory. 


, 


RUSSELL H. CONWELL WHEN ELECTED CAPTAIN 


Av Ninetenn He was PuacepD IN ComMMAND oF Company F, 
Forty-sixtH MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS 


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GOING TO WAR 115 


“Then he bade the sword to remember all it had 
done in shaping the destinies of men and nations; how 
it had written on the tablets of history in letters red 
and lurid, the drama of the ages. Closing, he called 
upon it now in the battles for the Union to strike hard 
and strike home for freedom, for justice, in the name 
of God and Right; to fail not in the work to which 
it was called until every shackle in the land was broken, 
every bondman free and every foul stain of dishonor 
cleaned from the flag.” 

Before leaving for the front Russell’s company went 
into camp for about six weeks near Springfield. It 
was fall and the weather began to get cold. There 
were heavy autumn rains and snow flurries, and the 
actualities of war began to come home to the men. 
It was Conwell’s first experience of feeling, in a large 
sense, responsibility for others. He realized it now 
overpoweringly. ‘These men had enlisted to a great 
extent through his influence. They had appointed 
him as their leader and he felt accountable for them. 
Up to the outbreak of the war he had been concerned, 
quite naturally, with self; with getting an education 
and with what he was going to do with his life. But 
these need experiences and responsibilities began to 
turn him from looking inward to looking outward. 

This larger comprehension of life was not a matter 
of mere speculation or sensation. It took a practical 
form. Russell Conwell has ever been a practical man. 
In his ministry, he has followed up his preaching by 
work. And in these early days, as he went among the 
men, he responded in practical ways to their needs. 
To an ill-clad man shivering with cold, he gave his own 
overcoat. To the soldier with no money to buy medi- 
cines, he gave his own pay. In hundreds of other 
ways Conwell showed that he had been aroused from 
his theretofore self-centered life. 

8 


116 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Dr. Richard Cabot says in ‘What Men Live By” 
that the sense of somebody’s need is the most power- 
ful motive in the world. ‘This sense of need and also 
of responsibility pressed heavily upon Conwell at this 
time and rapidly changed him from a boy to a man. 
This was the beginning of that desire to serve others 
which has been such a marked characteristic of his 
work. 

At last the order came to leave for the front. Cap- 
tain Conwell’s company was ordered to North Carolina, 
and the men sailed from Boston, on the steamers 
“Merrimac”’ and ‘‘Mississippi,’? November 5, 1862. <A 
furious gale was blowing and, after battling down the 
harbor for a short distance, the boats were compelled 
to put back and anchor for several days. Captain 
Conwell took his men ashore and they slept in Fanueil 
Hall until the boats again sailed. 

That Boston was well aware of their presence, his- 
tory avers. ‘The captain was young and full of high 
spirits, and he believed in keeping up the men’s spirits. 
The pranks of the ‘‘Mountain Boys” were not soon 
forgotten, though Boston felt so kindly toward all 
soldiers that it only laughed over the escapades of 
these new recruits. But there was no homesickness, 
and when they again embarked it was with high spirits 
for the adventure ahead. 

The trip south was uneventful. The soldiers landed 
at Newbern, threw up breastworks, dug trenches and 
made themselves familiar with drills and garrison 
duties. Four or five weeks passed before they had 
their first experience of battle, and then Company F 
was not in the severest part of it. The chief work of 
the ‘Mountain Boys” in this encounter was to carry 
off the wounded and bury the dead. 

But shortly afterward they were engaged in severe 


GOING TO WAR 117 


fighting which lasted for several days. The company 
was part of the force sent to Goldsboro to destroy the 
railroad which carried provisions to General Lee’s 
army in Virginia. Captain Conwell in a letter home 
gave a graphic description of the experience of his 
men and himself. He wrote: 

‘“‘T have been gone from camp two weeks, and dur- 
ing that time I have seen some of the most horrible 
sights. We started one week ago last Thursday from 
our camp here, taking with us nothing but our blankets 
and a pair of socks, and took up our line of march 
towards Kingston. Oh, it was a splendid sight to see 
that great body of men as it started toward the heart 
of North Carolina. In that vast army might be found 
the Third Brigade, and in that brigade could have 
been found Company F, and of course in that was your 
humble servant. 

“T cannot wonder now that McClellan did not move 
faster, for it took us until noon of the first day to go 
two miles. The heavy artillery broke almost every 
bridge and sunk in every mud-hole, taking from half 
an hour to two hours to extricate it. We made more 
headway in the afternoon and, by traveling until mid- 
night, we arrived tired and hungry in an open field about 
fifteen miles out, where, having eaten our hard bread, 
we laid our weary bones on that hard, bare ground to 
rest. 

“And thus passed the second day and night! But 
the third day we ‘saw another sight.’ About ten 
o’clock in the forenoon the sound of terrific cannonad- 
ing greeted our sensitive ears and, as we neared the 
scene of conflict, our hearts beat hard and our breath 
came short because of the terrible roar of the cannon, 
and the shouts of men, and cracking of muskets. The 
smoke curled up toward the heavens in little wreaths 


118 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


and, far above the heads of the contending forces, 
formed a dark cloud which hung over the place like 
a pall over a bier. 

‘‘When we arrived at the scene of action, the artil- 
lery had driven the rebels from the edge of the woods 
where they had first entrenched themselves and they 
were then fighting in an open field beyond. Oh, it 
was a terrible sight to see men’s legs, arms and heads 
shot away, scattering the blood about them like a 
shower; and to hear the whistle of thousands of bullets 
as they spread their message of death, while the shell’s 
with a hellish scream, would burst over and among us, 
sending consternation and death into our ranks! But 
this state of things did not last long ere the enemy 
fled, leaving our shouting, victorious army in posses- 
sion of the entire field. 

“Soon we commenced to follow up their retreat. 
And, on a ‘double-quick,’ our army of 27,000 ran along 
the road in hot pursuit of the flying foe. We chased 
them until we crossed the Neuse River into Kingston 
and there for a moment we were shocked and halted; 
for the rebels had planted a battery of six guns on the 
other side of the river to keep us back while one of their 
number fired the bridge. As we—the Ninth New 
Jersey was ahead—turned a curve in the road close by 
the bridge, an awful shower of grape and canister met 
the rebels, mowing them down and tearing them into 
pieces. The fence beside the road was cut into kindling 
wood, and for six rods no piece could be found more 
than six inches long. But the men, ‘Oh, where were 
they?’ Scattered, shattered and torn, they lay about 
the fields a piece in a place. 

‘IT shall not describe that horrid scene lest it make 
your blood run cold. But the end was not yet. Just 
before the volley came, I saw a man on the bridge 


GOING TO WAR 119 


with two pails in his hands—one of turpentine and one 
of tar—setting the bridge on fire. But after our 
artillery had commenced to play on them and they had 
fled, I could not find him. I supposed he had fled with 
the rest and taken his combustible materials with him; 
but after we had succeeded in putting out the fire and 
our army commenced to cross the bridge, I discovered 
the incendiary. Oh, it was a sight that would freeze 
the blood! For there—on the bank of the river, with 
one leg shot off, and all covered with tar and turpentine 
which had burned and fried out his flesh—lay the 
unfortunate rebel writhing in terrible agony. But 
his tide of life soon ceased to flow. And when I passed 
over the bridge the next morning nothing but a black 
coal, which crumbled at every jar, was left to tell where 
the once human form had been. 

“But I am making my story too long, so will cut it 
short by saying that when I come home—if I ever 
do—I will tell you of our leaving Kingston and resum- 
ing our march up the river; of our flight at Whitehall, 
and of how the General called for volunteers to go and 
clean out the rebels from a thick wood where they 
were posted in trees and behind stumps killing us off 
as we passed; and how forty-three of my company 
volunteered to go and went, meeting with many narrow 
escapes as bullets sizzed through their caps and clothes. 
But much to my satisfaction not a man was lost. And 
then I will tell you how we arrived at the railroad near 
Waynesborough, and how the fierce cannonading made 
the earth tremble, while about our heads the screech- 
ing shells whirled and burst, making it a very uncom- 
fortable situation to be in; how the rebels charged 
our batteries and, literally torn to pieces, retreated 
under cover of the woods; how we tore up railroads 
for miles and burned a bridge, that being the object 


120 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


for which we had started; how, as we continued on 
our march back, the rebels raised the river across 
which we had to go, to prevent us from crossing and, 
as a consequence, we had to swim. 

“And I shall also tell you of our weary and tiresome 
march back, while beside the road lay the rebels which 
we had killed; ‘unwept, uncoffined, and unrecognized;’ 
and how we arrived here weak and footsore, hungry 
and sleepy, from our fatiguing march. Yes, all this 
and more I will tell you when I come, if I am not 
mistaken about the preparations which are going on 
for another expedition. Yet such is war, and we, as 
patriots, must submit to it. But, oh, it is terrible to 
see young men with their arms shot off! For I think 
of friends at home who perchance will grow cold and 
austere when these young men return as cripples to 
their homes. Well, we are now recovering from the 
fatiguing effects of the march and soon will be ready 
for another.”’ 

Of this engagement one of the men wrote, ‘‘We 
had to struggle back to camp through a burning forest. 
Hundreds of acres were on fire. ‘The ground was a 
sheet of flames from the dry leaves and brush and pine 
needles that had lain there for years. ‘Trees were 
falling everywhere and the flames shot up the resinous 
pine like a chain of lightning. We lost the wagons 
and every man had practically to run for his life. We 
could scarcely see for the smoke. It was a terrible 
experience.” 

It was on this trip, also, that the men went through 
what became known as the ‘‘Gum Swamp experience.” 
It was an experience that tested the mettle of the men 
and the resources of the young captain, and was one 
which none of the survivors ever forgot. On their 
return to Newbern, the Confederates hung on their 


GOING TO WAR 121 


rear, riddling their ranks with shot and shell. Suffer- 
ing, maddened, with no way to turn and fight, for the 
enemy kept themselves well hidden; with no way of 
escape ahead if they remained on the road, they plunged 
into the swamp that swept up black and dismal to the 
very edge of the highway. ‘The Confederate prisoners 
with them warned them of their danger; but the men 
were not to be stayed when a deadly rain of the enemy’s 
balls was thinning their ranks every minute. The 
swamp was a black ooze with water up to their waists 
—a tangle of grass, reeds, cypress trees and bushes. 

Loaded down with their heavy clothing and their 
army accoutrements, the men one after another sank 
from sheer exhaustion. No man could succor his 
brother. The only thing anyone-could do was drag 
himself through the mire that sucked him down. But 
Captain Conwell would not desert a man. He could 
not see his comrades left to die before his very eyes— 
those men who came from his own mountain town; 
his own boy friends—the ones who had enlisted “under 
him; marched and drilled with him. He worked 
indefatigably; encouraging, helping and carrying some 
of the more exhausted. <A wet, straggling remnant 
reached Newbern. Even then, when Captain Conwell 
found that two of his own company were missing, he 
plunged back into the swamp to rescue them. Hours 
passed and, just as a relief expedition was starting out 
to search for him, he came back, his hat gone, his unt- 
form torn into rags, but with one of the men with him 
and the other left on a fallen tree with a path blazed 
to lead the rescuers to him. 

But the days were not all filled with fighting. There 
was much garrison duty. ‘There were long days in 
which there was little to do but drill and perform 
guard duty. Drilling, however, under Captain Con- 


122 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


well’s direction was one of the most pleasant parts of 
the day’s work. He felt his responsibility and threw 
himself into the work with an earnestness that infected 
his men. ‘They preferred to drill with him two hours 
rather than with any other officer a half hour. They 
not only caught the contagion of his enthusiasm, but 
he changed the dull, monotonous drudgery of drilling 
into real, fascinating work by marching the men into 
seemingly hopeless situations and then; in some 
unexpected and surprising way, extricating them. 

‘‘One of the men of Captain Conwell’s company 
tells how he marched them into a narrow place and 
successfully maneuvered them out again. The next 
day he sent another officer to drill them. The man 
marched them into the same place, thinking he could 
demonstrate a new way out. But he was unable to 
extricate the men at all, and finally was compelled to 
tell them, ‘You'll have to turn around and get out the 
way you did yesterday.’ ’’ Another man of the com- 
pany tells how Captain Conwell never spared himself 
any of the unpleasant phases of the work. He says: 

‘““One day the Colonel, while drilling the regiment, 
noticed that many of the men of Company F marched 
far out of their places to avoid a mud-hole in the road. 
He marched and countermarched over the same ground 
to compel the men to keep their rank and file regardless 
of the mud. Captain Conwell saw his object and 
plunged into the mire. The men followed and were 
thus saved the reprimand which threatened.”’ 

In those long, dull days of garrison duty Captain 
Conwell also did what he could to keep up the spirits 
of hismen. ‘‘ He was always making stump speeches,” 
said one of them. Those who know Doctor Conwell’s 
ability as a speaker can readily see how he could 
enliven these dull days in this way. He organized a 


GOING TO WAR 123 


minstrel show. With his pay he bought a melodeon, 
had it shipped from New York to camp, and many 
were the ‘‘sings”’ he and his men had around it. One 
of the men in a letter home speaks of the brass bands 
some of the regiment had, and so, he writes, ‘“‘we were 
not shut out of the privilege of hearing good music once 
in a while.” These “Mountain Boys” never lost their 
love of music and with none was it keener than with 
their leader. In another letter a man writes: ‘The 
captain has been in his tent singing.” And another 
tells how the war songs were sent them as soon as 
published, and how eagerly the men would learn them 
as soon as they arrived. 

All this seeming frivolity had a purpose. Captain 
Conwell knew that the singing, the minstrel shows, 
and the various other amusements which he devised 
kept the men during their long dull garrison days from 
becoming homesick and discontented. Hence he 
planned these entertainments and various diversions 
so that in Company F there might always be a feeling 
of expectancy—a sense of something about to be done. 
“He was a good captain and a good officer,” said one 
of his men. ‘Everybody liked him. He was always 
doing something for us, and he would spend his last 
cent for the men.” 

Although he did all he could to keep his men amused 
and contented, for himself there was serious work. 
Whenever he had a spare minute he devoted it to 
study. Now that he was in the midst of the struggle 
and where he could at a moment’s notice serve his 
country, he was able to study with a clearer mind than 
he could at Yale with classrooms and professors about 
him but his heart at the front. During the term of 
his first enlistment he committed to memory the whole 
of Blackstone and the process of visualizing which he 


124 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


had learned in school was now of great help to him. 
He could, by means of this visual memory, see the 
printed page as if it were before him, and study it at 
times when it was impossible to have books with him. 

Captain Conwell not only in this way went on with 
the studies he had dropped at Yale, but he was alert 
to acquire any helpful books that he could find among 
the people with whom he was now thrown. Indeed, 
the passion for books which caused him to keep fifteen 
to twenty volumes from the library in his room at 
Wilbraham still burned within him. In a letter home 
he tells of an effort to buy some books from a South- 
erner who had been ruined by the war. He had heard 
that the man had some books for sale and went to see 
him: 

“T stated my business and he seemed very willing 
to sell me the book I wanted,” he wrote, “‘so I paid 
him two dollars and took the book back with me. And 
I had a good long chat with the family, who told me 
all about the breaking out of the rebellion. The old 
man said he told the ‘boys’ when they seceded that he 
had lived in the old Union too long to believe that they 
could break it up. But the old man is now very poor, 
for a blasting army had swept over his land and taken 
almost everything he possessed. But as it was grow- 
ing late, I took my leave much pleased with my visit 
and with my book. 

(Signed) Caprain R. H. ConweE.L1, 
Company F, 46 Regiment, M. V. M.” 
Nondum Murtuus. 
(Not dead yet.) 


CHAPTER XIV 
THe SECOND ENLISTMENT 


Captain of Company D. Accompanied by John 
Ring. In Charge of Newport Barracks. Attack 
of Prckett’s Corps. Defeat of Conwell’s Men. 
Death of John Ring. Appointment on General 
McPherson’s Staff. Wounded at Kenesaw Mountain. 
Conversion. 


HEN the term of enlistment of Company F’s 

\ K / men expired Governor Andrews of Massa- 

chusetts wrote Captain Conwell asking him 

if he would not raise another regiment. 
This he did. He spoke more widely throughout the 
state than previously and, as before, men flocked to 
enlist. The regiment thus recruited was the Second 
Massachusetts Regiment of Heavy Artillery, and he 
was made captain of Company D. The regiment 
went into camp at Readville and later sailed from 
Boston for Newbern, North Carolina, the same place 
to which Captain Conwell and the men of the first 
enlistment had been assigned. 

It was with this company that John Ring went in 
care of Captain Conwell. He was a boy of sixteen or 
seventeen, the son of a neighbor—a “slim, hand- 
some youth, quiet but very popular, idolizing Conwell 
and always with him,” is the description given by his 
fellow soldiers. 

It was only upon one question of reading his 
Bible that he refused to obey Captain Conwell. It 
was a source of regret to the boy that he felt that he 

(125) 


126 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


must disobey, and a deeper disappointment that the 
man whom he so admired disbelieved in the Bible. But 
though he disobeyed in this instance, he did not swerve 
in loyalty in other matters. He shared Conwell’s tent, 
waited upon him, nursed him when sick and devoted 
himself wholly to him. 

When the troops reached Newbern, Captain Con- 
well and his men were put in charge of a fort at New- 
port, outside of Newbern and near Fort Macon. They 
were supported by the Ninth Vermont Infantry, whose 
duty it was to protect the command from side attacks. 

The control of this part of the Atlantic coast was 
important to both armies. It was a convenient point for 
the landing of supplies, both munitions and food. And, 
though the campaigns elsewhere were more spectacular 
and figured more prominently in history, there was a 
constant struggle here between the troops of both sides 
for control. The pickets of the two forces were but a 
few rods apart and the firing and skirmishes were 
continuous. Although no great battles were fought, 
as compared with some of the big battles of the war, 
constant alertness was required on the part of the 
Northern men not to be surprised and overpowered 
by the watchful enemy. 

This necessary vigilance brought Captain Conwell 
into many dangers. While making the rounds one 
night with an orderly, he was attacked and fired upon 
by a picket of the other side. In the struggle he was 
knocked insensible. Fortunately the shot fired at him 
struck his watch and glanced aside. The dent in the 
timepiece where the bullet hit showed what a narrow 
escape he had. 

At another time, with this same orderly and eighteen 
or twenty of men, he was foraging for horse feed, when 
the little body of Northern men came unexpectedly 


THE SECOND ENLISTMENT 127 


upon a company of Confederates concealed in the grass 
and behind trees. Captain Conwell immediately 
ordered his men to lhe down; but seeing a Confederate 
behind a large pine tree, he went forward to capture 
him. It was a big tree and the two men could not see 
each other around it; but they reached around as far 
as they could and shot at each other. The Con- 
federate, however, was more experienced in the shoot- 
ing of men than Captain Conwell and reserved his 
last bullet until he knew that Captain Conwell’s ammu- 
nition was gone. ‘Then he came boldly out to shoot 
Conwell. 

Captain Conwell’s men, who had been watching the 
firing, when they saw their officer’s peril, rose as one 
man and came after the Confederate. He fired at 
Conwell, hitting him in the shoulder, and then turned 
and ran. But he stumbled, fell and was captured. 
His men fled when they saw him taken prisoner. 
Captain Conwell’s wound at the time did not seem 
serious. The bullet was not even extracted, but in 
later years this oversight nearly cost him his life. For 
the bullet, instead of being lead, as is customary, was 
brass, the Confederates being compelled to melt brass 
rods to secure metal for their bullets. The brass cor- 
roded and ate into his lungs, causing hemorrhages that 
for months puzzled physicians and brought him to 
death’s door. 

In later years Doctor Conwell met the Confederate 
who had shot him and they became warm friends. 
“Tt goes to show,” said Doctor Conwell, in speaking 
of their present good feeling towards each other, ‘‘how 
war will inflame men’s hearts with the spirit of murder, 
even when there is no basic reason for it. If men were 
not stirred up by spasmodic eruptions of hate for each 
other, the sense of brotherhood would quickly develop. 
It is in most men waiting to be developed.” 


128 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


In one of these raids for horse feed he and his men 
visited a nearby farmhouse. The men always had 
orders not to force their way into the homes of the 
Southerners, but merely to take what they might need 
for their horses. On this occasion Captain Conwell 
went to the house to state his mission and, contrary to 
the usual custom, he was pleasantly received. In 
fact, the people professed to be quite friendly and later 
sent to him in camp some homemade persimmon beer. 
Captain Conwell never suspected treachery and grate- 
fully accepted the seeming kindness; but the beer was 
poisoned and made him seriously ill. At one time his 
life was despaired of. It was weeks before he was able 
to be about; and years passed before his system was 
entirely free of the poison and its effects. During his 
entire illness in camp he was faithfully nursed by 
John Ring. 

While Captain Conwell was ill his men’s pay fell in 
arrears, and when he was able again to be abouthe found 
much dissatisfaction and discontent because they had 
not been paid. The men needed their money to send 
home, and to buy clothing and other necessities for 
themselves. He wrote the paymaster at Newbern 
about the matter and received the reply that if he 
would come to Newbern with the payroll, he would be 
given the money to pay his men. 

He did not realize that it was necessary to get a 
leave of absence, as the officers had frequently gone 
between Newport and Newbern without a special 
permit, so Captain Conwell took his orderly and 
started. He reached Newbern that night; but as he 
rode into the little town where he had passed his first 
term of enlistment, he heard news that appalled 
him. The fort under his charge at Newport had been 
attacked by Pickett’s Corps—the same corps that 


THE SECOND ENLISTMENT 129 


made the famous charge at Gettsyburg—his men had 
been defeated, the fort had been abandoned, and the 
Confederates were victorious. 

He immediately turned and galloped back towards 
the fort. Soldiers straggling by told him that he 
could not get through. Still he kept on, determined to 
reach Newport. Farther on he found the woods on 
fire, and the flames were sweeping in all directions. The 
heat was overpowering and the smoke blinding. He 
turned aside, hoping by a detour to reach his men; but 
other stragglers told him the country was full of the 
enemy and that an attempt to return would only mean 
capture. 

He then tried to descend the Neuse River by boat, 
hoping to reach the vicinity of the fort in this way. 
But the posts all along the river had been captured by 
Confederates. After two days of ceaseless endeavor 
he reluctantly gave up and went back to Newbern. 
But when he reached this little town again, he heard 
the most crushing news of all—John Ring had lost his 
life in an effort to save the gold-sheathed sword from 
falling into Confederate hands. 

As the men told Captain Conwell of the boy’s 
struggle across the burning bridge; of the humane order 
of the Confederate officer to “Cease firing;” of the 
burned, blistered body that dropped into the out- 
stretched arms of his comrades; of his last words in the 
hospital, ‘‘Tell the Captain I saved his sword,”’ he was 
prostrated with grief and horror. This tragedy, 
coupled with the defeat of his men, the loss of the fort, 
his own over-exertions in trying to return, brought on 
an attack of fever. For days he tossed in delirium, 
endeavoring to rescue John Ring from the burning 
bridge, or to get back through fire and forest to his men. 

Other troubles followed fast. The commanding 


130 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


general at Newbern, was so severely criticised by 
Major-General Butler for the loss of the fort, that he 
looked about him for some one upon whom to lay the 
blame. He discovered that Captain Conwell, the officer 
in charge at Newport, was absent without leave, and 
forthwith ordered a court-martial. 

Captain Conwell did not realize the full significance 
of this. He was still weak from his illness, and his 
thoughts were so filled with the death of John Ring 
that he gave little heed to other matters. He paid no 
attention to the summons. His record, he felt sure, 
would settle any question as to his bravery. He knew 
that his men believed in him, and he thought the mat- 
ter of getting a regular leave of absence a mere tech- 
nicality that would have little weight in comparison 
with his actual service. So he did nothing whatever to 
defend himself before the court. He did not even 
secure anyone to appear forhim. Someone who knew 
but little of the facts was appointed to be his counsel 
by the officer in charge of the court-martial. 

In addition, a member of the court-martial was the 
brother of a man who had wanted the captaincy of 
Company D and bitterly resented the appointment of 
Captain Conwell. Under such conditions it was little 
wonder the court-martial went against him. The verdict 
was discharge from the service but without loss of pay. 
Even then he did not realize all that this meant, for 
he was but a boy, not yet of age, until the chaplain of 
the regiment came to him and told him how unjust the 
decision was; how foolish he had been not to defend 
himself; how seriously such a stigma might affect his 
after life, and that he ought not to let it rest. 

The earnest protests of the chaplain, together with 
the angry resentment of his men at what had been done, 
finally aroused Captain Conwell and he decided to act. 


THE SECOND ENLISTMENT 131 


He immediately entered an appeal to General Butler 
at Fortress Monroe and went to see him. Butler 
granted him a personal interview, but said that he him- 
self was just then in such a controversy with Hancock, 
at Washington, that he could do little. He said he 
would have to straighten out his own affairs before he 
could take the matter up, but that if Captain Conwell 
could wait he would then give it his attention. 

In two weeks, however, Butler was removed, and 
returned to his home in Massachusetts, and was un- 
able to do anything in the matter. He wrote from 
Massachusetts advising Captain Conwell to take his 
case to President Lincoln, and also sent a strong letter 
to Lincoln, saying that Captain Conwell’s action was 
but an indiscretion of youth due to his lack of full 
knowledge of army regulations and strongly advised the 
President to reinstate him. 

Acting upon this advice, Captain Conwell went to 
Washington. While there, he had a memorable inter- 
view with President Lincoln, of which he speaks in his 
lecture, ‘‘Acres of Diamonds.” During this period, 
while the further decision as to the court-martial was 
pending, his friends were not inactive. A number of his 
comrades in North Carolina had organized a battalion 
and elected him as major. Of course he could not 
accept this command until the verdict of the court- 
martial had been set aside. However, another offer 
came while his case was held up, waiting for papers, 
which he accepted and returned to active service. 

A friend had written General McPherson, in com- 
mand of the Seventeenth Army Corps, recommending 
Captain Conwell as a staff officer. McPherson wrote 
him to come and see him at Chattanooga, Tennessee, 
and, after a talk, appointed him as lieutenant-colonel 
on his staff. The General talked over the matter of 


9 


132 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the court-martial and advised Conwell to get it out of 
the way as quickly as possible in order that he might 
get his commission. But he also told him to take his 
place at once on his staff and report for active duty. 

The General said that he would write to Lincoln him- 
self, asking for a reversal of the decision of the court- 
martial in order that Conwell might the more quickly 
get his commission. But General McPherson was 
killed before the letter was written. Thus Captain 
Conwell served as lieutenant-colonel with General 
McPherson’s staff, but received his commission after 
the General’s death and after Lincoln was assassinated. 
The verdict of the court-martial was afterward reversed 
and Captain Conwell received his honorable discharge. 

However, the receiving of the commission was a 
small matter compared with the vital experiences of 
life which this campaign brought to Colonel Conwell. 
Under McPherson he was in many battles from Resaca, 
Georgia, to Atlanta. But the engagement that had 
the most far-reaching consequences to him was that of 
Kenesaw Mountain. He was severely wounded here 
and left for dead upon the field. He heard the foot- 
steps of those searching for the wounded, but was too 
weak to call for help. They passed him by and he lay 
there all night, amidst the dead and dying, not knowing 
but that he himself might pass away before morning. 
The next day, searchers seeking for his body, because 
he was an officer, found him and he was taken to the 
Big Shanty Hospital near Marietta, Georgia. 

During those long night hours on the battlefield and 
again in the hospital, the great riddle of life and death— 
the meaning and purpose of it all—began to press in 
upon Colonel Conwell as these matters never had done 
before. His soul reached out for more knowledge than 
he had about these things. He wanted to know if there 
was some solution that would satisfy. 


THE SECOND ENLISTMENT 133 


He sent for the chaplain, but when the chaplain came 
Colonel Conwell could not bring himself to talk 
publicly about religious matters, and said he wanted 
something to eat. However, the inner questioning 
would not be stilled. He sent for the chaplain again, 
and this time asked to be prayed for. The chaplain 
made a formal, perfunctory prayer which angered 
Conwell, and he said bluntly the prayer had done 
him no good. But, finally, the two came to under- 
stand each other and had many long talks, in the course 
of which Conwell asked three questions that had been 
troubling him: 

“Is there a future life?” 

‘“‘Tf there is, what does the character formed in this 
life have to do with it?” 

“Will friends meet again in the other world and know 
each other?” 

“IT talked these things over long and earnestly with 
that chaplain,” says Doctor Conwell, in speaking of this 
period of his life. ‘“‘At last all became clear, and I have 
never for a moment doubted since.” 

“Ts that what you would consider conversion?’’ was 
asked him. 

He pondered a moment. “Yes, except that I would 
say decision must go with conversion. It is not only 
a matter of emotion. One must dosomething. Merely 
getting excited and doing nothing is not conversion. 
Decision and action must go with the change of thought, 
or else it is not real. It is only effervescence. True 
conversion changes the main purpose of life from 
selfishness to unselfishness; from the desire to have 
one’s own way to a willingness to do whatever God com- 
mands, no matter what the consequences. ”’ 

Of his life experiences, this one was the most momen- 
tous. It was his first real grasp of eternal things, 


134 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


without which he began to see there could be no satis- 
faction. His father’s and mother’s religion now had 
areal significance. He saw the substance, when before 
he had seen but the form. He began to discern the 
great spiritual foundation upon which all of life’s hopes 
and ambitions could securely rest. 

Colonel Conwell promptly expressed his convictions 
and immediately upon leaving the hospital made a 
public profession of his new faith. ‘This deeper under- 
standing of life brought him great joy and eventually 
led to great usefulness. But he was not then consider- 
ing the future. He simply took the next step. Spirit- 
ually he had come to a place of need and he sought 
help. But in allying himself with good, he discovered 
as the years went by, that ‘‘ Eye hath not seen nor ear 
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man 
to know the things that God hath prepared for them 
that love him.”’ He found, as Tolstoy has expressed 
it, that “‘He who lives for soul, lives for good’’—good 
for himself and good for others. 


GECAIR it Rien. 
New VENTURES 


Admitted to the Bar. Marriage. Removal West. 
Infe 1n Minneapolis. Mrs. Conwell’s Progressive 
Editorial as to Woman’s Place and Interests. Loss of 
Home and Illness. Immigration Agent to Germany. 
Gwen up to Die in Paris. Health Restored, 
Reporter on ‘‘ Boston Traveller.’ Trip Around 
World as Correspondent. 


r | YHE wounds that Colonel Conwell received at 
Kenesaw Mountain were a long time in healing. 
After he left the Big Shanty Hospital, he was 
compelled to go to Nashville for still further 
rest and treatment. Here he reported to General 
Thomas and, as soon as his condition would permit, 
was sent to Washington on a mission to General Logan. 
But the rough traveling and hardships of the journey 
reopened his wounds, and on the way he completely 
broke down. He was given a furlough and before he 
was able to again enter active service the war ended. 
While at home waiting for his wounds to heal, Rus- 
sell Conwell entered the law office of Judge Shurtleff, 
of Springfield, Massachusetts, and continued his law 
studies. Here, to the astonishment of the Judge, he 
repeated from memory the whole of Blackstone, which 
he had learned at Newbern. Judge Shurtleff considered 
it an unprecedented feat and called together a number 
of lawyers to hear it. They all agreed that, to their 
knowledge, such a thing was unknown in the history 
of the legal profession. 
(135) 


136 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


In speaking of his memory, Doctor Conwell insists 
that he did not have an especially good memory as a 
boy, but that he improved what he had. This, he 
maintains, anyone can do, and also accomplish all that 
he has done and more. 

When the war was ended, although the wounds in 
his arm and shoulder were still not fully healed, he 
entered the Law School at the Albany University in 
New York State, completed his law studies and was 
admitted to the bar. Russell Conwell was now ready 
to face life for himself. What he had made of himself 
was now to be put to the test. 

He was tall, still somewhat lanky, and thin and 
angular from sickness and work. But he had a person- 
ality that instantly won friends. The “‘good-natured 
boy, always laughing,’’ of Wilbraham days was some- 
what sobered. But the same eager interest in life that 
had led him at eight years of age to send for circulars, 
till his mail was the largest at the country post-office, 
was still there. So, too, was the appreciation of beauty 
that had moved him as a child of ten to welcome the 
dawn with Milton’s “Invocation to Light;” and also 
the determination that had carried him as a lad unaided 
through Wilbraham. This keen interest in affairs, this 
love of the beauty of life, this democratic attitude 
toward work, made people like him. But these were 
no longer the dominant notes of his personality. The 
love of humanity and faith in God—the legacy 
bequeathed by the war—were first to impress and most 
strongly to attract those who met him. 

With his law studies finished; with his equipment 
for work full ready, the sweetest experience of life 
became his. In 1865, shortly after he was admitted 
to the bar, he was married to Miss Jennie Hayden, 
of the nearby town of Chicopee Falls. She had 


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LIEUTENANT-COLONEL CONWELL 


SEcOoND ENLISTMENT 


NEW VENTURES 137 


been among his pupils when he first taught school. 
She was a warm friend of his sister Harriet, a frequent 
visitor at the Conwell home, and a favorite with the 
entire family. 

Life’s greatest incentives were now his. Almost 
with joy he thought of those hard years at Wilbraham 
and Yale. They filled him with confidence for what 
now lay before him. ‘They were a promise of what he 
might again do. Tor now, as then, he had nothing 
with which to start upon the new life but determination. 

‘“T had no money,” Doctor Conwell said, in speaking 
of this period of his life. ‘‘ Nothing but my education.” 

“Don’t you think it is rather hazardous to marry on 
such prospects?”’ was asked. ‘‘Wouldn’t it have been 
better to wait?” 

‘“‘No,”’ was his emphatic reply. ‘‘ Marriage is not a 
mechanical business. Married life is the normal life. 
The ambition to have a home is the greatest incentive 
a man can have. I don’t believe in waiting to be 
married. I do not believe in being reckless; but there 
is always work a man can do, if he is earnest and willing. 
If he can’t find one kind of work he can another.”’ 

In his wife he found a true helpmate. She had a sweet 
and loving disposition that matched and responded to 
his own affectionate nature. She was as courageous as 
he, and she faced their future as confidently. She was 
ambitious, but it was an ambition with high ideals. 
She wanted to live to do good; was utterly unselfish, 
and recognized her husband’s capabilities and threw 
herself wholly into the task of helping him. 

“Persistent faithfulness,’’ Doctor Conwell has 
described as her chief characteristic. ‘‘She utterly 
effaced herself in her desire to help me,” he has said. 
And permeating all these qualities was a forcefulness 
and self-reliance that swept on with his to dare and do. 
One who knew her well, in describing her said: 


138 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


‘She was a beautiful woman, with bright, dark eyes, 
good color and a fine form. She was very jolly and 
full of fun, and could see the funny side of anything. 
When others saw the dark side, she would always find 
something to make it bright. Russell adored her 
and depended on her. He confided in her and talked 
things over with her. She believed in him, encouraged 
bim and was anxious to see him rise. She never thought 
of herself. She saw the potential power in him and 
gladly sacrificed herself to help him.” A _ cousin, 
writing to Mrs. Conwell from Williams College, under 
date of March 4, 1865, has this to say of their marriage: 

‘““T was very much gratified to find that the people 
among whom I have been visiting entertain so high an 
ppinion of your husband, as a young man of firm prin- 
ciples, fine talents and great promise. I discovered that 
his friends have—and I judge not without reasons that 
fully justify them—high hopes of his future career, 
while I am very sure that it is my earnest wish that he 
may more than realize these expectations. To stand 
as well as he seems to in the opinion of others is, to say 
the least, a compliment to his intellect. I only hope, 
Jennie, that your two lives, joined in the highest, ho- 
liest bonds on earth, may ever surpass in success and 
happiness your most ardent anticipation for the future.” 

Almost immediately after they were married Russell 
Conwell decided to go West. He had not outgrown 
his childhood’s habit of sending for literature of all 
kinds. An advertisement of Minnesota, and of the 
bright future of those who grew up with the country, 
had attracted his attention. He sent for the printed 
matter and after a careful study of it and of such other 
data as he could get, the two resolved to make their 
home there. 

One week after their marriage he started, leaving 


NEW VENTURES 139 


Mrs. Conwell to follow when he had made a place for 
her. He had barely enough funds to pay his carfare. 
But the lack of capital has never deterred Russell Con- 
well from going ahead with what he thought ought to 
bedone. The first two dollars he earned in Minneapolis 
were obtained by sawing wood. He did not have then, 
nor has he now, any false pride. He planted potatoes 
and did whatever he could find to do during those 
first few weeks; but he also made friends. A letter 
to Mrs. Conwell from one of these new friends—Mrs. 
Keith, with whom he boarded—gives a good picture of 
his first days in the West. 

‘‘Dear Friend,” it began, ‘‘ Your husband has vol- 
unteered to hoe potatoes for Mr. Keith this afternoon 
if I will do his work, 2. e., to write you. As I have 
agreed to do so, I shall keep my word, and your loss 
will be our gain. I think, however, he will not refuse 
to assist me by sending you at least a note, so that you 
will not be so great a sufferer by this agreement. 

‘‘But, all joking aside, I have wanted for some time 
to assure you of the high appreciation that we cherish 
for your warm-hearted, noble, Christian husband, and 
to allay your fears that should sickness and suffering 
come to him, no one in this far-off country would 
minister to him or give him the sympathy and love of 
true friendship. Let me assure you, dear friend, that 
such fears are groundless. In the little while he has 
been among us he has gathered around him many 
friends, and if the hour of adversity should come, he 
will find them just as true as the old and tried ones. 

‘“‘But we find that he does not forget old friends while 
enjoying the society of many new ones. We are look- 
ing forward with interest to your coming among us to 
join your husband, and trust you will decide to come 
out this summer. I think, if you wish to employ some 


140 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORE 


of your leisure, you can have the opportunity to teach; 
and as our schools are on the graded system that you 
are probably familiar with, you would find it pleasant. 

‘‘T think there is no doubt in regard to the success 
of your husband here. He has already done more 
business than you could reasonably expect a stranger 
to procure, and the foundation for a good and perma- 
nent business seems firm. In the meanwhile accept 
the assurances that, until you do come, he shall be as a 
brother to us, and in all ways that we can, we will seek 
to advance his interest and highest good.” 

Russell Conwell, as the writer of this letter says was 
not long in getting a foothold, as he soon became the 
Minneapolis correspondent of the St. Paul Press, and 
filled a column every day with news of the town. He 
began to practice law and also went into the real estate 
business. A few months after he had arrived prac- 
tically penniless, he was in a position to send for Mrs. 
Conwell. Keenness, alertness, and a willingness to do 
whatever he could find to do, but not to be content with 
so doing, had quickly made him known and given him 
a footing in this bustling western town. 

Mrs. Conwell arrived in August with her mother and 
brother, Joseph Hayden, who went into business with 
Conwell, and the prospects of the young couple began 
to look bright. As Minneapolis correspondent for the 
St. Paul Press, Conwell was not long in discovering 
that Minneapolis needed and could support a paper of 
its own. With him to see a need was to supply it if 
there was nobody else to do it. In company with 
Colonel Stevens he started the Minneapolis Daily 
Chronicle, which has since become the Minneapolis 
Tribune. The weekly edition of this paper was called 
Conwell’s Star of the North. In the editorial of the first 
issue is given not only the purpose of the paper, but a 





MRS. JENNIE CONWELL 


First Wire or Dr. ConweLu 





NEW VENTURES 141 


good index of its editor’s outlook on life. In this 
article he says: 

“Tt will be appropriate in the first number of the Star 
to state fairly what the reasons were for bringing out a 
new paper at this time and also to say what position 
we intend to take upon the questions of the day. There 
has been a lack of such family reading as the intelligence 
and enterprise of Minnesota would seem to demand. 
The political papers cannot devote much time or space 
to matters of mental culture and do their parties justice. 
Whenever they do insert anything other than political 
news or comment it must necessarily be wholly sub- 
ordinate to the main object of their publication, viz., to 
advance the interest of their party. Far be it from us 
to blame them. If they are party organs, let them 
speak the things of their party. It is in the contract. 

“But with us these things are different. Claiming 
to be the organ of no party, bound by no political ties, 
having no political history, and doing whatever we do 
entirely within ourselves; taking nothing, asking 
nothing of anyone, we propose to speak our own mind 
freely upon any topic in which we believe the people 
to be interested. No ‘stockholder’ can come in and 
upbraid us if we differ from him. No ‘private friends’ 
can come to ‘set us right’ if perchance we tread upon 
their toes. This paper will be the organ of the editor 
only, and any injustice or wrong that is brought to his 
notice will be as openly and freely condemned if perpe- 
trated by one man as by another, and anything com- 
mendable will be as quickly perceived in one place as 
in any other. It is, however, enough to say(which we 
are sorry to state is more than some can say) we are 
ourselves. 

‘We will try to the best of our ability to carry into 
the family with the Star a high standard of morality, 


142 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORE 


a love for the good, a respect for the noble, and an 
increased interest in education, refinement, and every- 
thing that elevates and dignifies mankind. We say 
we will try to do this; but should we at any time fail, 
or come short of our aim, it will be the fault ‘of the 
head and not of the heart.’ Westart with the people. 
We will march on with them. ‘They know the metal 
from the dross, and we will rest our cause with them.” 

Mrs. Conwell conducted the ‘‘ Ladies’ Department.” 
Her initial editorial is not only a good indication of her 
broad outlook on life, but it shows how far in advance 
of the times was her thought, and how courageous and 
independent she was in voicing it. 

‘“‘Upon assuming the care and labor belonging to the 
‘Ladies’ Department’ of this paper,’”’ she wrote, ‘‘we 
take upon ourselves a great responsibility. We feel 
how much happiness, morality and religion depend 
upon the reading matter furnished by the family news- 
paper. In view of all this we lay down our plan of 
operation for the future. 

‘“We repudiate the ideas put forth by the Star Com- 
pany in their prospectus relating to the ‘ Ladies’ Depart- 
ment.’ We will never consent to conduct any part of 
the paper which proceeds upon the supposition that 
fashions, receipts, cook-books, and nonsense are the 
only matters of interest to the female part of the com- 
munity. Pshaw! Is Minnesota so far behind the age, 
that her people do not know that the ‘reign of mind’ has 
commenced on earth? Have they yet to learn that 
there are found among our sex the brightest, clearest 
literary minds of the day? : 

“Will the women of the Northwest be satisfied: to be 
represented by a journal which concedes to woman 
only just enough thought to appreciate a cook-book? 
Answer us, ye men whose homes are cheerful and happy 


NEW VENTURES 143 


in the presence of a thinking wife or daughter. We 
know. full well what your answer will be. It will 
be just such a reply as should come from the hearts 
and heads of intelligent, honest, generous men. You 
would say that this is not the age of brute force. The 
stoutest arm, the strongest body, does not necessarily 
command the respect and reverence of a people now, as 
that ancient day. It is the strongest brain, the deepest 
thought that compels the homage of the world. 
“Woman has been hampered by custom, spoiled 
by too much care, bound by the fascinating cords of 
fashion, and has never had the opportunity of proving 
whether she be man’s equal or not. Whatever she has 
done, in nearly every instance, has been appropriated 
and claimed by men. Who supposed, until very 
recently, that the mowing machine—the greatest 
improvement of the age—a machine that saves our 
farmers hundreds and thousands of dollars every year— 
was the invention of a woman? How little did she 
realize the benefit she was doing mankind when she 
left the flower-beds she had been trimming with her 
scissors and asked her husband if a machine for mowing 
might not be made to work on the same plan! 
“But we do not wish to enter into any argument. 
We wish simply to call attention to the matter, and to 
state that we believe woman is mentally man’s equal; 
that she has her sphere of action; that her place 1s not 
man’s; that her physical and mental constitution is 
different from man’s and calls for different exercises; 
that there is enough for both to do in the world, and 
neither need be termed ‘inferior.’ We do not adopt 
the extreme stand of Anna Dickinson, George Francis 
Train and others, nor the other extreme which would 
treat woman as an ‘inferior order of animals.’ 
“But. we hold to the golden mean, claiming that 


144 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


literature, art, and science are as appropriate studies 
for women as for men; that women are as interested 
in all that disciplines the mind as are men; that the 
milliner should have no more influence over women 
than the tailor over men; that millinery, dressmaking, 
tailoring, receipts, cook-books, and fashions are worthy 
of attention, but not of the whole attention, of any class 
of human beings; that in conducting this department 
we shall do as we please, without consulting the men 
as to the propriety of our action. We shall select, 
write, and insert such articles as we shall think of inter- 
est to ‘woman as she should be;’ and when we make 
up our minds that nothing else but the items recited 
in the Star prospectus are of interest to our lady readers, 
we will drop our pen and ‘Hie to worlds unknown.’”’ 

It is a fine, clear, vigorous statement, and far in 
advance of the general thought of her day. It brings 
out in a strong light her charmingly forceful personal- 
ity. It gives a good picture of what a helpmate she was. 
One feels that she would put into everything she did the 
same force and the same fine mentality and high purpose 
that are here shown. 

In addition to these undertakings, any other avenue 
for earning a living that opened was utilized by Russell 
Conwell. Singing lessons were given in his law office, 
and he also gave instruction on the piano. Thus many 
a dollar was added to the family income by his knowl- 
edge of music. But in this new life with all its new 
interests and needs, his time and attention were not 
wholly concerned with himself. Ever since his con- 
version in the Big Shanty Hospital near Marietta, 
Georgia, and his open profession of faith when able to 
leave the hospital, he had been active whenever and 
wherever possible in the cause of Christ. 

Although a stranger in a strange land, Russell Con- 


NEW VENTURES 145 


well’s activity did not cease upon his arrival in Minne- 
apolis. He spoke in the cause of temperance, and he 
made addresses at Sunday-schools. On one occasion, 
when a funeral service was to be held and the minister 
was detained by a storm, Conwell preached the funeral 
sermon. ‘‘It was an inspiring sermon, too,” said one 
who heard it. He organized a quartet, himself singing 
bass, Mrs. Conwell soprano, Mr. Hayden tenor, and a 
friend alto; and, with him at the organ, the four gave 
their services wherever such help was needed. 

But perhaps his most important work in this line was 
the establishment of the Y. M. C. A. of Minneapolis, 
He had been holding a noon prayer-meeting every day 
for a year in his law office. It was similar to the “uiton 
Street noon prayer-meeting in New York—one of the 
most remarkable prayer-meetings of the country. 
So successful was this prayer-meeting in Conwell’s 
office that those who came felt they would like to 
branch out into some larger work. A committee was 
formed consisting of a member of one of the large dry 
goods firms of the town, a deacon in the church of which 
Conwell was a member, and Conwell, as chairman. 
The field was carefully surveyed and, as a result, the 
Y. M. C. A. of Minneapolis was started. 

Thus several years slipped away and prosperity 
seemed assured. Conwell’s business was growing; 
his friends were increasing and he was, as well, taking 
an active part in the religious life of the community— 
a work which, had he been willing to admit it, brought 
him more genuine satisfaction than anything else he did. 
Already he was beginning to feel an inner pulling 
toward the ministry that was given increased strength 
by the remembrance of his father’s and mother’s wishes 
in the matter. But as yet he had not seen this work 
in its true light and he resisted the call. 


i" 


146 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Then, suddenly, disaster came. One night in 1868, 
when the entire family were away, the house caught 
fire. Conwell was attending a G. A. R. meeting about 
a mile distant. When word was brought to him, he 
ran the entire distance, hoping to arrive in time to save 
some of the household goods. It was a bitter night, 
with a temperature of thirty-five degrees below zero. 
The running, the excitement, and the cold, brought on 
a hemorrhage of the lungs. At first, this was thought 
but a passing ailment. ~ 

The family fixed themselves in a few rooms and 
cheerily set their faces toward retrieving their lost 
fortune; but the hemorrhages continued. Often as 
much as a pint of blood was lost at one time; he rapidly 
grew weak and thin, and business was impossible. 
The doctors hinted at tuberculosis and held out little 
hope. Everything had been lost in the fire; funds were 
low; no money was coming in; and, with health and 
business gone, the future looked black. At last it was 
decided to take the little money that was left and 
return East. His family and friends, if not Conwell 
himself, thought his life was but a matter of weeks. 

These were dark days for Russell Conwell and his 
wife. Everything he had worked so hard to achieve 
was lost, and the money he had saved was gone.. The 
position he had labored to make was valueless, and 
death might be but a few weeks or months away. 

‘‘How did you have the courage even to try to go 
on?” was asked him. ‘‘Under such circumstances, 
most people would have just given up.” 

His mouth settled into grim lines. ‘‘They were 
dark days,”’ he said, “but I never acknowledge to 
myself that I am defeated. I held on, then. I kept 
planning in my mind things to do. Then, too, one is 
more disheartened if failure comes through one’s own 


NEW VENTURES 147 


fault. When it comes—as this did—from nothing for 
which I could blame myself, I think one has more heart 
to try again.” 

Not only did he refuse to give up hope himself, but 
his friends stood by him. It was thought that possibly 
a trip abroad might benefit him; and the warm and 
wide circle of friends he had made in Minneapolis 
secured his appointment as Immigration Agent to 
Germany for the State of Minnesota. 

With this appointment, he and Mrs. Conwell 
returned to Massachusetts, and he sailed for Germany 
to take up his duties; but his health did not improve. 
He finally gave up the commission upon which he had 
been sent, as he felt he was not able to do the work 
properly. ‘Then he wandered about Europe from one 
health resort to another, hoping to find relief. At 
last he joined a surveying party and went to the Holy 
Land, for the inner voice was calling more insistently 
to follow in the footsteps of Christ and preach and teach 
and heal the sick. He desired greatly to see the country 
where the Saviour had gone up and down doing good. 

But the trip was of no benefit physically, and the 
hemorrhages became more and more frequent. He 
could not keep up with the party and, in 1869, he left 
it and went to Paris. Here he was so weak that he 
could no longer care for himself and he entered the 
Necker Hospital for treatment. After an examination, 
he was told he could live but a few days. 

But his life was not to flicker out among strangers in 
a strange land. He now had faith in a supreme and 
loving Being, and he prayed with all his fervor that he 
might be permitted to again see his wife, his father and 
mother and the woods and streams of his native land. 
His prayer was answered in greater measure than he 
had dared hope. 


10 


148 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


His case had aroused much interest among the 
physicians of the hospital, because the blood from the 
hemorrhage, when analyzed, disclosed traces of brass. 
The talk about it spread outside the hospital walls and 
finally came to the ears of a famous Berlin doctor 
then in Paris. He was a man always on the alert for 
anything new and remarkable in his profession. He 
came to the hospital and studied the case of the young 
American. 

‘“Were you ever shot-in the shoulder?” he finally 
asked. 

Then came back to Conwell the recollection of the 
duel with the Confederate around the tree in the 
North Carolina woods, and the bullet which had lodged 
in his shoulder near his neck and which had never been 
removed. He told the physician the incident. 

‘There is the trouble,” said the doctor. ‘‘That 
bullet had brass in it, and it has worked down into 
your lung. Only the most skilful operation can save 
you, and there is only one man—so far as I know— 
who can do it. He is a surgeon in Bellevue Hospital, 
New York. Even then, your chance is slight. 

But the physician’s words brought hope—hope of 
again seeing his people and home, and perchance of 
life itself. It buoyed him to attempt the trip home. 
It was a fearful ordeal and required all his determina- 
tion and grim tenacity to help him carry it through. 
Even when almost unconscious from weakness, he 
clung to that one purpose to reach home. Few can 
realize the suffering and loneliness of that trip, but 
he survived it. 

Upon landing in New York, Russell Conwell was 
taken to the Bellevue Hospital, the case explained and. 
the opinion of the famous physician given. The 
surgeon of whom the doctor had spoken made an 


NEW VENTURES 149 


examination, and the bullet was found near the 
third rib. It had worked down from the shoulder 
through the tissue of the lung to this position. To 
remove the bullet would be an exceedingly delicate 
operation, and the chance of recovery was slim; but 
without it, death was inevitable. 

It was an anxious time for all who loved him; but the 
operation was successful. The bullet was removed and, 
in a short time, health and strength were back in full 
tide. With returning vigor came the old desire to 
work. Conwell went to Boston in 1870, and secured 
a position on the Boston Traveller at fifteen dollars a 
week. He and Mrs. Conwell established themselves in 
a few rooms and practically began life anew. 

But, though poor, these were happy days. The fear 
of ill health had been lifted; congenial work had been 
found; and their first child, Nima, was born. The 
name given to her is indicative of the originality of 
Conwell’s mind. It is a Bohemian word meaning 
“none such.”’ Doctor Conwell has a dislike for nick- 
names and never wanted his children to have a name 
that could be thus misused. 

As in Minneapolis, his indefatigable work soon began 
to tell, and his circumstances to improve. He opened 
a law office and also began to lecture. His work on 
the newspaper, too, began to arouse comment. Then 
came his first big commission. He was sent by his 
paper to write up the battlefields of the rebellion, and 
‘““Russell’s Letters from the Battlefields,’ became 
famous all over the country. They were quoted and 
commented upon widely. Simply as descriptive writ- 
ing they were vivid pieces of literature. But the human 
interest element was woven in, together with memories 
of the battles that had been fought; and not only the 
soldiers, but everyone throughout the country read 


150 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


them eagerly. (See Appendix, “Russell’s Letters from 
the Battlefields.’’) 

These letters were followed by a trip around the 
world as special correspondent for the Boston Traveller 
and the New York Tribune. He was already the New 
England correspondent for the T’ribune, so it was an 
easy matter to place his articles from abroad with the 
big New York paper as well as with the Boston Traveller. 

When Conwell returned from this trip, he brought 
out his first book, published by Lee and Shepard of 
Boston, ‘‘Why and How the Chinese Emigrate and 
the Means They Adopt of Getting to America.” The 
Chinese question was causing great excitement just 
then, and this book was timely and popular. 


CHAPTER XVI 
Busy Days 1n Boston 


Doctor Conwell Tells about Meeting Tennyson, 
Gladstone, Garibaldi, Henry Ward Beecher, Whittier, 
and Many Other Famous People. His Work 
as a Lawyer. Free Legal Advice to the Poor. 
The Boston Young Men’s Congress. His Tremont 
Temple Sunday-school Class. 


Russell Conwell was offered an editorial posi- 

tion upon the Boston Traveller. Thishe accepted. 

His work now broadened in many ways, 
and his days became increasingly active. He wrote 
not only for his own paper, but he did special work for 
other papers and periodicals throughout the country, 
and this necessitated much traveling. 

The demand for lectures increased and these took 
him to various parts of the country. In addition, he 
went abroad many times in the interest of different 
newspapers and publications, and interviewed many 
distinguished men and women of that period. 

He thus obtained a wonderful kaleidoscopic picture 
of life. From the West—where his work took him to 
the very frontiers of civilization and he mingled with 
hardy pioneers and obtained their primitive outlook 
upon life—he went to the very heart of the slums of 
Boston among the poor and suffering, and from there 
he boarded a steamer bound for the old and cultured 
civilization of Europe, to view its superfine luxuries 
and mingle with some of its best representatives. 

(151) 


Ue: his return from his trip around the world, 


152 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


On one of these foreign trips he saw Bismarck—“ A 
ereat, large-hearted German,’ Doctor Conwell describes 
him, ‘‘with a laugh that fairly shook the building. 
He was a rough, rude soldier with hard features; but 
I do not believe,” he observed, thoughtfully, ‘‘that he 
would have shot Miss Cavell.” 

Doctor Conwell also saw Von Molke, whom he remem- 
bers as a dignified soldier and a most polished gentle- 
man. His interview with Tennyson remains vividly 
in his memory, and is one of the most pleasant that 
he recalls. 

He went to seen Tennyson in company with Harriet 
Beecher Stowe and spent an afternoon with the poet. 
It was during this interview that Tennyson told about 
the writing of the poem, ‘‘ Break, Break, Break,’ which 
is probably known wherever the English language 
is spoken. 

« This poem was written shortly after the loss of a 
loved one. The poet had gone to the seashore, upon 
the advice of friends, in the hope that new scenes might 
fill his mind with other interests and lessen his grief. 
As he walked upon the beach and gazed out over the 
waters the view took form in: 

“Break, break, break, 

On thy cold gray stones, O sea.” 

Then over him swept the memory of his bereave- 
ment. The scene before him vanished. All that he 
saw or thought was his loss, and the mental picture 
ended in: 

“T would that my heart could utter, 
The thoughts that arise in me.’ 

The following day he had the same experience and, 
as he gazed out over the sparkling waters, his thought 
took shape in: 


“The stately ships go on 
To their haven under the hill.” 


BUSY DAYS IN BOSTON 153 


Then again the overwhelming sense of his loneliness 
swept over him, and he finished: 


“But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still.” 


Conwell stayed a week with Garibaldi and walked 
with him around Caprera, the island owned by Gari- 
baldi, and where he made his home. ‘“‘It was a great 
experience,” Doctor Conwell says in recalling it. 
“We would sit up and talk half the night. That week 
with him was practically the whole of Italian history. 
It made me keenly interested in Italian affairs—an 
interest I have never lost. All these interviews, how- 
ever, were a great education. They made me want to 
read and know more about the prople and countries 
I saw.” 

“My interview with Dickens, for instance, gave me 
a greater desire than I had previously had to read his 
books. I saw him a few days before he died, so, of 
course, he was scarcely his usual self. He was fussy 
and nervous, but wonderful, despite the state of his 
health. He kept us much longer than we had expected 
to stay.” 

Doctor Conwell’s recollection of Gladstone is most 
pleasant. ‘‘He was a good, kindly old English gentle- 
man and he talked long with me about American affairs. 
I was amazed at the scope of his knowledge of them.”’ 

Just before the outbreak of the Franco-German war, 
Conwell attended a banquet in Paris at which the 
Emperor and Empress were present. ‘‘HKugenia was 
a beautiful woman,” he says, ‘‘and,” he added, “‘she 
really was the whole government.” 

Victor Hugo impressed him as a stern, reserved 
man, who hated Napoleon the Third, and looked 
upon his ascension to the throne as a great crime. 


154 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Doctor Conwell saw Emperor Francis Joseph, and 
attended a reception to William the Third of Ger- 
many at his palace. In fact, there were few people 
of note that he did not interview, or events of impor- 
tance at which he was not present as a journalist. 

Li Hung Chang, the famous Chinese statesman, was 
among those interviewed during these years. He 
impressed Conwell as a stingy old man—careful not 
to spend a cent. An indication of this was his failure 
to serve his visitors with tea—the custom in China. 
“He had a genial side to his nature, though,” con- 
cluded Doctor Conwell, ‘‘and when I called upon him, 
he was playing leap-frog with his grandchildren, and 
also letting them ride on his back, under the pretense 
that he was an elephant.” 

However, not all of Doctor Conwell’s interviews 
were with distinguished people abroad. He also met 
many men of note in America. In this way he came 
to know Henry Ward Beecher very well. The man— 
whose sermons as a child he had read and whom, as a 
young man, upon his first visit to New York, he had 
heard Pech that remarkable sermon in which 
Beecher auctioned off a slave woman—came to have an 
important place and a strong influence in his life. 

“My acquaintance with Henry Ward Beecher,” 
Doctor Conwell says, ‘‘was the most intimate that I 
had with any public man. I was often in New York 
for several months at a time doing special work on the 
Tribune. At such times, I always reported Beecher’s 
sermons. When he had anything special to be written 
up, he would send for me. We traveled together a 
great deal, and, later, when I myself was lecturing, I 
met him often on my lecture trips. ”’ 

Bayard Taylor was another of Conwell’s intimates 
of these days. Taylor was one of the editors of the 


BUSY DAYS IN BOSTON 155 


New York Tribune and Conwell, through his connection 
with the paper, had become acquainted with him. 
They had chanced to meet upon one of Conwell’s trips 
abroad and had traveled together from London to 
Italy. After his death Doctor Conwell wrote a biog- 
raphy of him; and when the great memorial service 
was arranged for him in Tremont Temple, Boston, the 
Young Men’s Congress asked Conwell to call upon 
Oliver Wendell Holmes and request him to write a 
poem upon Bayard Taylor’s death for the occasion. 

‘‘T called upon Mr. Holmes and told him what was 
wanted,’’ says Doctor Conwell in recalling the inci- 
dent. ‘‘I remember the occasion well. He was sit- 
ting in a rocking chair. He rocked back and kicked 
up his feet, and ridiculed the idea as absurd. 

‘<“T write a poem on Bayard Taylor?’”’ he said. ‘No; 
but I tell you, if you will get Mr. Longfellow to write 
a poem on Bayard Taylor’s death, I will read it!’ So 
I went to Mr. Longfellow and told him what Doctor 
Holmes had said, and here is the poem he wrote.””’ And 
Doctor Conwell recited: 


‘¢ ‘Dead he lay among his books! 
The peace of God was in his looks. 
As the statues in the gloom 
Watch o’er Maximilian’s tomb, 

So these volumes from their shelves 
Watched him, silent as themselves. 
Ah, his hand will never more 

Turn their storied pages o’er. 
Never more his lips repeat 

Songs of theirs, however sweet. 
Let the lifeless body rest! 

He is gone who was its guest. 
Gone as travelers haste to leave 
An inn, nor tarry until eve. 
Traveler! in what realms afar, 

In what planet, in what star, 

In what gardens of delight 

Rest thy weary feet tonight. 

Poet, thou whose latest verse 

Was a garland on thy hearse, 


156 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Thou hast sung with organ tone 

In Deukalion’s life thine own. 

On the ruins of the past, 

Blooms the perfect flower, at last. 
Friend, but yesterday, the bells 
Rang for thee their loud farewells. 
And today they toll for thee, 

Lying dead beyond the sea. 

Lying dead among thy books, 

The peace of God in all thy looks.” ” 

Whittier was another distinguished American with 
whom Conwell spent many hours in the poet’s charm- 
ing, old-fashioned home in Amesbury. ‘‘I used to 
run out to his home frequently,’ says Doctor Con- 
well, ‘‘and in his study, talk over with him matters in 
which we were both interested.” 

That study is a restful room. Many pleasant hours 
the aged poet and the young newspaper man passed 
together in it. It looks out upon a peaceful garden. 
The walls are covered with photographs, autographed 
poems and mementos of many kinds from friends and 
admirers all over the world. 

The furniture is old-fashioned and the desk upon 
which the poet wrote is small and cramped according 
to present-day standards; but an atmosphere of peace 
and charm pervaded the place that was an inspiration 
and strength to the busy young newspaper man who 
came here so frequently. 

“T once asked Whittier what was his favorite poem,”’ 
says Doctor Conwell when recalling these days. ‘‘He 
replied that he had not thought very much about it, 
but said there was one that he especially remembered. 
It was this: 


“*T know not where His islands lift, 
Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care.’ 


id also asked him, ‘Mr. Whittier, how could you 
write all those war songs which sent us young men to 


BUSY DAYS IN BOSTON 157 


war, and you a peaceful Quaker? I cannot understand 
it!’ He smiled and said that his great-grandfather 
had been on a ship that was attacked by pirates; and, 
as one of the pirates was climbing up the rope into 
their ship, his great-grandfather grasped a knife and 
cut the rope, saying ‘If thee wants the rope, thee can 
have it.’ He said he had inherited something of the 
same spirit.” 

Another question which Conwell put to Whittier 
was of an extremely personal nature, and shows how 
intimate they were. ‘Several of us had been discuss- 
ing one day in the newspaper office after our work was 
done, why Whittier had never married,”’ said Doctor 
Conwell in speaking of this particular interview. ‘I 
said I would go and ask him. I went out to his house 
and approached the subject from all possible sides, 
with what I thought were leading questions; but the 
poet did not respond in the way I wished. Finally I 
asked him point blank. He smiled but again evaded, 
and I returned to my co-workers no more enlightened 
on the subject than when I left. The next day, how- 
ever, I received a letter from Whittier, which read: 


““Tyzar CoLonet:—I thank thee for thy interest in 
my humble past and hazy future. It was a blest con- 
ference we had on First-day. Come again and let us 
walk longer by the river. I enclose the answer I 
could not give thee yesterday. 

“ “Thy Friend, 
“ ¢J. G. WHITTIER. 


‘* ‘Amesbury, July 10, 1871.’ ” 


Enclosed was the poem entitled ‘‘Memories.”’ (See 
Appendix.) 

But busy as Conwell was with his newspaper, maga- 
zine and book work—for he wrote many books in 


158 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


those days—this was but a small part of his activities. 
He became more and more widely known as a lecturer 
and the calls for him to speak became more and more 
frequent. While upon one of his trips abroad, he gave 
a series of lectures at Cambridge, England, on Italian 
history, that attracted much favorable comment. 
They grew out of the interest in the subject which 
Garibaldi had aroused in him. 

It was also during these busy days in Boston that 
Conwell wrote a biography of Daniele Manin, the 
great Venetian statesman, for whom Garibaldi had 
aroused his admiration. This manuscript was thought 
to have been destroyed by a fire at his Boston home; 
and it was not until years afterwards that it was found 
in a barrel in the barn where, in the confusion, it had 
been hastily placed for safe keeping, and then forgotten. 

Conwell’s law practice steadily increased. He had 
an office in Somerville, practically a suburb of Boston, 
where he now lived, and also one in Tremont Temple 
in the city proper. In this law practice he took a 
step unprecedented in the history of the profession in 
Boston. He was ever ready to respond to the needs of 
the poor, and in his newspaper work he often saw how 
a little legal advice would lift the poor and ignorant 
over a rough place in the road. So he inserted in the 
Boston paper the following notice: 


‘““Any deserving, poor person wishing legal advice 
or assistance will be given the same free of charge, 
any evening except Sunday, at No. 10 Rialto 
Building, Devonshire Street. None of these cases 
will be taken into court for pay.” 


These cases Conwell prepared as attentively and 
took into court with as great a determination to win 
as those for which he received large fees. This pro- 


BUSY DAYS IN BOSTON 159 


ceeding laid him open to much professional criticism. 
His action was said to be unprofessional, sensational 
and a ‘‘bid for popularity.” But criticism did not 
stop him. The wrongs of many an ignorant man, 
suffering through the greed of men over him, were 
righted. Those who robbed the poor under various 
guises were made to feel the hand of the law. 

And for none of these cases did Conwell the lawyer 
ever take a cent of pay. He kept his law office open 
at night for those who could not come during the day, 
and gave counsel and legal advice free to the poor. 
Often during the evening he had as many as half a 
hundred of these clients, too poor to pay for legal 
aid, yet sadly needing help to right their wrongs. 

Another class of clients who brought Conwell much 
work but no profit were the widows and orphans of 
soldiers seeking aid to obtain pensions. ‘To such he 
never turned a deaf ear, no matter what multitude of 
duties pressed. He charged no fee, even when to win 
the case he was compelled to go to Washington. Nor 
would he give up the case—no matter what work it 
entailed—until the final verdict was given. His part- 
ners say he never lost a pension case, nor ever made 
a cent by one. 

Attorney Conwell was considered an expert in con- 
tested election cases, and he frequently appeared 
before the legislature in behalf of cities and towns on 
matters over which it had jurisdiction. One who knew 
him personally, speaking of these days says: 

‘““Conwell prepared and presented many bills to 
Congressional committees at Washington, and appeared 
as counsel in several Louisiana and Florida election 
cases. His arguments before the Supreme Court of 
the United States in several important patent cases 
were reported to the country by the Associated Press. 


160 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


He had at one time considerable influence with the 
President and Senators in political appointments; and 
some of the best men still in government office in 
this state (Massachusetts) and in other New England 
states, say they owe their appointment to his active 
friendship in visiting Washington on their behalf. 
But it does not appear that, through all these years 
of work and political influence, he ever asked for an 
appointment for himself.” _ 

An unwritten law in Conwell’s law office was that 
neither he nor his partners should ever accept a case 
if their client were in the wrong or guilty. But this very 
fact made evil-doers the more anxious to secure him. 
They knew it would create the impression at once that 
they were innocent. 

A story that went the rounds of legal circles in 
Boston, and finally was published in the Boston Sunday 
Times, shows how he was cleverly fooled by a pick- 
pocket. The man charged with the crime came to 
Attorney Conwell to get him to take the case. So well 
did he play the part of injured innocence that Colonel 
Conwell was completely deceived and threw himself 
heart and soul into the work of clearing him. 

When the case came up for trial, the lawyer and 
client sat together in the court-room and Colonel 
Conwell made such an earnest and forceful plea in 
behalf of the innocent young man, and the harm 
already done him by having such a charge laid against 
his door, that the district attorney agreed to dismiss 
the case at once. So lawyer and client walked out of 
the court together, happy and triumphant, to Colonel 
Conwell’s office, where the pickpocket paid Attorney 
Conwell his fee out of the lawyer’s own pocket-book 
which he had deftly abstracted in the court-room. 

“What was your most interesting case?’”’ was once 


BUSY DAYS IN BOSTON 161 


asked Doctor Conwell. He thought a moment and 
replied, ‘‘It was amurdercase. I came into it after the 
supposed murderer had been sentenced for life. He 
pleaded ‘not guilty,’ but made no defense. The ver- 
dict went against him, and when I came into the affair 
he was serving his life sentence. I was called to settle 
the estate of his son and discovered that the son had 
in his possession some property of the murdered man. 

“Suspicion had never been directed to the son at all; 
but when I went to see the man in prison to get him to 
sign some papers concerning the son’s estate, I said, 
‘You did not kill that man. It was your son that did 
it... At my words he broke down. But still he did not 
admit it. I was so convinced of his innocence that, 
without his permission, I took the matter up and brought 
it again through the court, with the result that he was 
finally pardoned. He had suffered to shield his son.”’ 

Into work for temperance Colonel Conwell went 
earnestly. He spoke for the cause and also helped 
individuals suffering from the habit. Many a drunk- 
ard he took to his Somerville home, nursed all night, 
and in the morning endeavored to awaken him to adesire 
to live a different life. Deserted wives and children 
of drunkards came to him for aid, and many of the free 
law cases were in behalf of those wronged through 
drink. 

Friend always of the workingmen, Colonel Conwell 
was persistently urged by their party to accept a nom- 
ination for Congress; but he as persistently refused. 
However, he worked hard in politics for others and man- 
aged one campaign, in which General Nathaniel P. 
Banks was running on an independent ticket, and 
elected him by a large majority. 

Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson presented Con- 
well’s name for United States Consulship at Naples 


o 


162 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORE 


because his lectures at Cambridge, England, on Italian 
history had attracted so much favorable comment on 
account of the deep research they showed and keen 
appreciation of the Italian character. At one time he 
was guardian of more than sixty orphan children and 
three of the most destitute of these were left a fortune 
of $50,000 through his intercession with a relative. 

In addition to his newspaper work, his lecturing and 
practice, Colonel Conwell went actively into real estate 
operations. In Somerville, a growing suburban sec- 
tion, he started the Somerville Journal, a newspaper, and 
began various real estate operations that materially 
assisted in the growth of the place. ‘Two streets in 
Somerville were named after him—one, Conwell Street 
and the other, Conwell Avenue. He built a beautiful 
home in what is now the Tufts College district. This 
is one of the loveliest sections around Boston. The 
land is elevated, and beautiful views are obtained of 
Boston and the towns along the Mystic River. 

Despite these many and far-reaching business 
activities, he found time for interests other than his 
own. As in Minneapolis, he entered energetically into 
all work of the community that made for better- 
ment and progress. 

One of theinstitutions which Colonel Conwell founded 
at this time and which has played an important part in 
Boston’s civic life, was Boston’s Young Men’s Congress. 
It was organized in 1875 by Conwell after he had dis- 
cussed the project with Charles Sumner. So important 
a body did it become that it was incorporated in 1885. 
It was modeled after the Lower House of Congress of 
the National Legislature and was a school of the 
actual work of the House of Representatives. The 
Manual of the Massachusetts Legislature was used for 
its rules. Its sessions opened the first Monday in 


BUSY DAYS IN BOSTON 163 


October and it met every Monday night during the 
winter. 

The congress had at one time more than a hundred 
members, and it became one of the notable associations 
of Boston. Bills were introduced as in the legislature, 
and all the important subjects of the day were discussed. 
The tariff, suffrage, immigration—whatever was fore- 
most in the public mind—was argued pro and con; and 
many were the heated debates, and widespread was the 
interest in the conclusions reached. 

Many of the prominent men of Boston were members 
of this congress. Hon. John D. Long, Governor of 
Massachusetts in 1880-83 and afterwards Secretary of 
the Navy, was one of its members; so also was Elmer 
A. Stevens, at one time Treasurer of the State of Massa- 
chusetts. Mr. Stevens says that his success as a public 
speaker was due to the training he received in the 
“Young Men’s Congress.” 

Other members included Charles H. Innes, then a 
young attorney and later a member of the Massachu- 
setts Senate; William T. A. Fitzgerald, a lawyer, who 
became a Senator and afterward register of deeds in 
Suffolk County—one of the most remunerative posi- 
tions in the gift of the people; Judge Barnes of East 
Boston court, who was for many years a member and 
speaker of the congress; March G. Bennett, a member 
of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; Ben- 
jamin C. Lane and Malcolm G. Nichols, who became 
members of the Boston city council, Judge Riley of the 
Malden court and a prominent figure in the Demo- 
cratic politics of Massachusetts; John Buckley of 
Cambridge, a deputy collector of internal revenue; 
and Harry Grigor of the customs service. Later these 
two men went prominently into social welfare work. 

In speaking of the work of the congress, one of its 

il 


164 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


members has said, ‘‘The congress was not sectarian. 
Many Catholics bore no inconsiderable part in its 
success during the many years of its existence. I men- 
tion this to show that, while the congress was founded 
by Colonel Russell H. Conwell, who was not a Catholic, 
it partook of none of the petty religious prejudices of 
the day.” 

Another member regarded the congress as the high- 
est class debating society he had ever attended. It was 
widely copied. The Law School of Boston University 
and the Young Men’s Christian Association both 
organized similar societies. Visitors were admitted to 
its sessions and occasionally a Ladies’ Night was held. 
Once a year a supper was given which was a most 
delightful and interesting function, as it included 
among its members and guests notable men, not only 
from Boston, but from many parts of the country. The 
congress disbanded in 1913-14, but for nearly forty 
years it was one of the prominent and influential organi- 
zations of Boston. 

Another association that was almost equally far- 
reaching in its influence was the Tremont Temple 
Bible Class organized by Colonel Conwell. When he 
returned to Boston to live, he allied himself with Tre- 
mont Temple Baptist Church, the church of his boy- 
hood friend, Deacon Chipman, who figured in his first 
adventure in Boston. Conwell started a Bible class 
which grew so rapidly that it soon beame necessary 
to secure a hall in which it could meet. Its member- 
ship numbered about eight hundred, but between two 
and three thousand people often attended its meetings. 

The Sunday-school lesson for the day was taken up 
by Conwell, who gave a little talk upon it, and questions 
and answers and discussions followed. The original- 
ity and the vitality of the discussions, and the applica- 


BUSY DAYS IN BOSTON 165 


tion of the truths taught to the everday problems of 
life, made the class meetings unusually helpful and 
interesting, and attracted to them thousands of the 
business men of Boston. 

In addition to the study and discussions of the lessons, 
the class did much work in the slum district of the 
North End. The poor and sick were visited, and books, 
clothing and provisions distributed among them. The 
class had an excellent male quartet—wherever Conwell 
was there was always good music—and the quartet 
helped the work of the class in this section by its 
singing. 

A second child was born in the Conwell family during 
these years—a son, Leon—now editor and publisher of 
the Somerville Journal, founded by his father. He 
is a prominent and influential resident of Somerville, 
has been a member of the Massachusetts State Legis- 
lature, and mayor of Somerville. 

Thus, writing, lecturing, traveling, practicing law, 
dealing in real estate, conducting a newspaper, helping 
in the civic and religious life of the community, Colonel 
Conwell’s days were filled with incessant activity. He 
lived life as zestfully as he had done in boyhood, but to 
larger ends. Then the years were giving. Now he was 
using what they had given. Even now, as he gave, he 
was receiving. His contact with all phases and con- 
ditions of life, his keen interest 1n all he saw and heard, 
his warm sympathies that carried him right into the 
heart of things, enriched and broadened him. These 
busy years were prolific of much building other than 
houses, legal emoluments and bank accounts. 


CHAPTER XVII 
His Entry INTO THE MINISTRY 


The Death of Mrs. Conwell. Increasing Interest in 
Religious Work. Doctor Conwell’s Second Marriage. 
The Lexington Church. . His Decision to Enter the 
Ministry. 


Conwell family in happy and useful activity. 

Colonel Conwell himself was becoming widely 

known by his writings and lecturing; was build- 
ing up a good law practice; was conducting large and 
successful real estate operations; and was prominent 
in the social, political and religious life of the commu- 
nity. Mrs. Conwell was equally popular and busy in 
social and religious circles; and was as ably and force- 
fully conducting a woman’s department in the Somer- 
ville Journal as she had done in the Minneapolis Séar. 
The two children—Nima and Leon—were growing into 
sturdy youngsters, brightening and making happy 
the family circle. A handsome home was nearing com- 
pletion for them in one of the most beautiful parts of 
Somerville. 

Then a tragic blow fell. In 1872, after a few days’ 
illness which was not thought to be serious, Mrs. Con- 
well passed away. With her usual cheery spirit, she 
had made light of her sickness. She had refused med- 
ical help, insisting that her ailment was trifling. The 
last time she went upstairs she laughed and joked, the 
family say, as she lifted herself from step to step, the 
pain, though she would not admit it, being too severe for 

(166) 


ie seemed to be flowering out once more for the 


HIS ENTRY INTO THE MINISTRY 167 


her to walk. She was brave, cheery, and self-effacing 
to the end. Her husband left her in the morning, 
thinking she was better, to return to find her dead. 
The rheumatic trouble from which she was suffering 
suddenly went to her heart and before aid could be 
secured she had left them. 

The months that followed were dark ones for Colonel 
Conwell. Ordinary occupations palled. He continued 
his editorial work, his law practice and his real estate 
operations. He worked even harder, if possible, so 
that his thoughts could not stray to his loss." It was 
during these years that he learned five languages by 
studying on the train to and from his office and his 
home. 

But zest in his many activities was largely gone. 
The lonely man needed something beyond these to 
satisfy. As in the Big Shanty Hospital at Marietta 
after his injury in the Battle of Kenesaw, the death 
angel roused him to look into her world—the world of 
the unseen, she again urged him to seek the things of 
the spirit. This time the call reached depths unsounded 
before and he sought to know eternal life and the gov- 
erning power of the universe more earnestly than when 
he was converted. 

Anything that concerned the Bible and Bible people 
attracted Colonel Conwell now. He gathered a valu- 
able theological library, sending to Germany for a 
number of the books. When he was admitted to 
practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, he 
delivered an address that same evening in Washington 
on ‘“‘The Curriculum of the School of the Prophets in 
Ancient Israel.’ From all parts of the Old World he 
collected photographs of ancient manuscripts and 
sacred places, and kept up a correspondence with many 
professors and explorers who were interested in these 


168 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


subjects. He lectured in schools and colleges on arche- 
ological subjects with illustrations prepared by himself. 
He also began lay preaching and spoke to sailors on 
the wharves, to idlers in the streets, and at little strag- 
gling missions where help was needed. 

Gradually, through his speaking and teaching and 
studying, the true understanding of what it meant to 
be a minister of Christ came to him. The misconcep- 
tions and narrow views of his boyhood days regarding 
the profession dropped away and the joy of the work, 
its great value, and the world’s need of workers in this 
field began to dawn upon him. 

While engaged in evangelical labors Colonel Con- 
well met Miss Sarah Sanborn, of a wealthy and influ- 
ential family of Newton Centre. She was an active 
worker in mission and church circles; a woman of 
culture, refinement, force of character and executive 
ability, and widely interested in religious affairs. They 
met frequently in religious work. 'Their common inter- 
est in such activities drew them together and, in 1874, 
they were married. 

After his marriage Colonel Conwell removed to 
Newton Centre, the seat of the Newton Theological 
Seminary. His new home was but a few blocks from 
the Seminary buildings. Mrs. Conwell already had 
many friends among the professors, and Conwell was at 
once thrown intimately into the atmosphere of theo- 
logical study and discussion. 

This brought to his attention and thought another 
side of the ministry. He thus obtained, through the 
actual work he was doing in lay preaching and teaching, 
and through the theological atmosphere into which he 
was now brought—a view of the profession as a whole. 
He could see the work from all sides. 

As Colonel Conwell meditated upon the need of 


HIS ENTRY INTO THE MINISTRY 169 


religion in men’s lives and the effects it produced there, 
the struggles of a little Baptist church in Lexington 
to prolong its existence, suddenly cleared his vision as 
to his course. He saw what his true work was and 
decided to enter the ministry. He closed his law 
office, gave up his real estate business, and offered his 
services as preacher to the little church in Lexington. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
His First PASTORATE 


Doctor Conwell Tells Why He did not Earlier Enter 
the Ministry. His Advice upon Choosing a Lrfe- 
Work. The Condition of the Church at Lexington. 
The First Service. Building a New Church. His 
First Church Fair. The Activities and Growth of the 
Lexington Church. His Help in Developing Lexing- 
ton. His Ordination. The Call to Philadelphia. 


successful real estate business to take the pastor- 

ate of a church that was on the verge of ruin 

seemed an act of folly to Colonel Conwell’s 
worldy-minded friends. Speaking of Conwell’s decision 
and his quick action, Mr. Hayden, his brother-in-law, 
said: 

‘“My wife and I were in New York at the time on a 
brief visit. We returned to Boston by boat and, as I 
wished to see Conwell about something, I went immedi- 
ately to his law offices in Tremont Temple, only to find 
them closed and to learn of the change he had made. 
I was dumfounded.”’ That was the way many of his 
friends and relatives regarded his action. But he him- 
self viewed the change in no such light. 

When questioned about the matter in later years, 
Doctor Conwell said with a happy smile, ‘‘I knew I had 
found my work. I was perfectly satisfied. I have 
never had any disposition to change it, to do anything 
else. Before that, I was always changing. I was rest- 
less. Though I was busy; though I was what the 

(170) 


[os relinquishment of a good law practice and a 


HIS FIRST PASTORATE 171 


world would call successful, I wasn’t satisfied. From 
the moment I decided on this work, I was contented 
and happy. I felt a great satisfaction that cannot be 
described in words. 

‘Had I known what the ministry meant, I would 
undoubtedly have gone into it sooner. I always had 
a pulling that way but fought against it, for my idea 
of the work was formed from my childhood experiences; 
from gloomy, harsh sermons I had heard as a child, 
from the torture I suffered in church when I could not 
keep awake and I knew I would be whipped if I didn’t. 
All these things meant to me the church and church 
work, and I could not force myself to inflict anything 
of that sort on others. It took me a long time to find 
out that one could be independent of such methods. 

“‘T remember, as a boy, an old preacher who was 
always asking me, ‘How is your soul?’ As I had an 
inner conviction that it was not altogether commend- 
able in his sight, I was eternally seeing it flying off to 
some region of eternal woe—not, I must confess, a 
pleasant thought to entertain continually. The uneasi- 
ness it gave me, I somehow blamed upon the ministry. 

‘“‘T remember another incident of my boyhood that 
set me against the ministry. Our minister was given 
a donation party, and sixteen dollars was collected and 
presented to him. But the expense of feeding the 
horses of those who came, and the cost of repairing the 
furniture that was broken during the evening’s hilarity, 
was greater than this amount. Such things made the 
ministry seem foolish and futile and lacking in good 
sense. I could not see any connection between it and 
purposeful living. Yet I always had the desire—as I 
think most men have—to do good; to be of use to 
others; and to make my life worth while. Had I 
realized that these were the foundation principles of 


172 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the ministry, I would have entered it sooner. But my 
early ideas of a minister’s life and work and accomplish- 
ment held me in a spell which I could not shake off for 
many years.”’ At another time Doctor Conwell said, 
in reference to this sudden and decided change in his 
life: 

‘‘T have been often asked how I came to choose my 
life’s work, as though it were a matter of my own selec- 
tion, instead of a case of being forced to do that which 
I did not like. But the feeling within my soul that I 
ought to preach the Gospel was never fully out of my 
heart, after the days when my mother insisted that I 
should be a preacher and told all the neighbors who 
came to our house of her great ambition for me. 

‘““That feeling would often rise to a very strong desire, 
and I seldom ever listened to a religious address or a 
fine sermon without feeling conscience-stricken and 
often half inclined to throw away everything and enter 
upon the humble service of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
But I tried to destroy that feeling, or at least bury it 
by taking hold of other things and putting my whole 
mind and time into them. 

‘“‘T studied law while in the army, and paced the 
beach many weeks at Fort Macon, in North Carolina, 
memorizing the entire works of Blackstone. I thought 
I had at least conquered my previous inclination 
toward the ministry, and that I should be contented as 
a lawyer. But my practice was much broken at first 
by the failure of my health, due to my army wounds, 
and I was forcibly thrust into newspaper writing by 
the necessity of earning a living and traveling for my 
health. 

“One of the first law cases which came to me after 
the opening of my law office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 
in 1866, compelled me to take possession of a printing 


HIS FIRST PASTORATE 173 


establishment connected with a weekly newspaper 
which had failed. That led to a financial interest in 
the Minneapolis Chronicle, which Colonel Stevens per- 
suaded me to undertake, and afterward led to the 
establishment of Conwell’s Star of the North, a weekly 
paper later merged into the present Minneapolis 
Tribune. Then, for several years, I traveled around the 
world, making a complete circuit of the earth for the 
New York Tribune, the Boston Traveller and my own 
Minneapolis newspaper. 

‘But I always kept up the ambition to return to the 
practice of law, which I did when I recovered my health, 
opening one office in Somerville, Massachusetts, and 
another in Boston. There I practiced law, speculated 
in real estate, entered into active politics, and began 
the publication of the Somerville Journal. All the time 
these various matters were being used by me to keep 
out of mind that mysterious call of the spirit to preach 
the Gospel. 

‘““Unexpected and probably undeserved success came 
to my law practice in Boston through accident and the 
kindness of friends, so that I seemed to be prospering 
beyond my highest hopes, when, among my clients 
there came a young widow—Mrs. Barrett of Lexington, 
Massachusetts—who consulted me as to what could 
be done with the property of an old Baptist church in 
Lexington, which had been practically abandoned. 

“TY had been continuously lecturing in the lyceums 
and speaking on the Sabbath to Sunday-school con- 
ventions and anniversaries, so that I was not out of 
touch with religious life and work. I had also organized 
a large Bible class of nearly eight hundred members in 
the Tremont Temple Church in Boston, of which I was 
a member. My advice as a lawyer to Mrs. Barrett 
was that they should sell the property and turn the 


174 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


proceeds over to the State Convention for the general use 
of the Baptist denomination. But the first little gather- 
ing which I attended in Lexington was such a sad 
occasion that we could not get the few old people, who 
loved the place so much, to do anything about selling the 
property; and Mrs. Barrett suggested that I should go 
to Lexington the following Sunday and give an address 
to such people as might come to the old building. 

‘The address, which I delivered there the next Sun- 
day, was attended by very few people and it would not 
have been safe for more persons to have stood upon 
the dangerous floor. But it was an occasion when all 
the old-time desire arose in full power within me, and 
my conscience resumed complete control of my actions. 
I resolved that night—after hours of struggle with 
myself and prayer to my Lord—to at last dedicate 
myself to the cause which I should have adopted years 
before. i was then thirty-seven years of age and 
settled in a profession in a large city, with prospects 
of wealth and success, which were very attractive; but 
I felt, ‘Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel,’ and I 
dared not disobey that divine call. 

“My family were greatly surprised, my relatives 
were indignant, and even the church members thought 
me to be unbalanced in mind to do so wild a thing as to 
launch out from my settled and successful life into the 
uncertainties of poverty and failure, which seemed all 
there was before me in the life of a preacher. But I 
surrendered all and kept on amid the scoffs and 
reproaches of my best friends. And while I have seen 
hours of trial; met sore defeats; been wounded by 
jealousies; injured by misunderstandings; yet, as I 
look back upon life now, I cannot see that I ever suffered 
greater hardships than I had expected. 

“Instead of those expected privations, I have been 


HIS FIRST PASTORATE 175 


especially blessed. The Lord has sent to me successes 
beyond my highest expectations, and I have had friends 
and comforts which I am sure I could not have deserved. 
Not for one moment since I came to a full decision to 
follow the Lord in his work have I ever been sorry that 
I made the change and, although I have not wealth nor 
fame, I can lay down my armor now with a feeling 
that I have succeeded more than I had ever hoped or 
expected. 

‘‘T have seen so many men, who have worked much 
harder, made more sacrifices, and had more talent, who 
have fallen in the rear and sunk into oblivion, that I 
cannot take to myself any pride; nor am I willing to 
accept these results as more than accidental. But I would 
have my friends—as I would myself—give the glory or 
the honor to the Great Power which has designs of His 
own and who promotes those whom He will or keeps in 
obscurity those who may serve Him best. 

‘No one in the service of the Lord can say that he is 
in the wrong place—no matter where he may be situ- 
ated—if his conscience does not tell him that he him- 
self. has entered into conscious sin. Defeats are often 
the greatest victories; and the Lord may use most 
those who seem to be—from a human point of view— 
of the least account. It is absolutely impossible for 
any servant of God to tell in this life whether his efforts 
are going to be of future avail, or whether his losses may 
not after all be of more account in the future Kingdom 
than the gains of the great.” 

This first service at which Colonel Conwell preached 
is often recalled by the members of the Lexington 
church. ‘‘When we heard that Colonel Conwell was 
coming to preach,” said one of these members, in 
describing his work in Lexington “‘we felt that we must 
get together an audience for him. We scoured the 


176 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


town to induce people to come, and succeeded in secur- 
ing eighteen to attend his first service. But after that 
first service we did not need to do any missionary work. 
People came of their own account. Soon they could 
not be accommodated in the church and they stood out- 
side on the pavement. Colonel Conwell is not limited 
for lung power, though, so they all heard him.” 

The church building in which the services were held 
was in a dilapidated condition, and the steps leading 
up to it were really dangerous. The structure was 
heated by a stove ‘“‘which,” one of the members said, 
“the janitor always insisted upon shaking down in the 
middle of the service.’ A small melodeon was the 
musical instrument. For this first service, in addition 
to securing a congregation, the interest of some of the 
music lovers of Lexington was also enlisted. 

‘‘T went to some of my Unitarian friends who sang,” 
said one of the workers, ‘‘and asked them if they would 
not come and sing for us. They agreed, and so we were 
able to have a quartet for that first service.” 

One can feel the anxiety of the few devoted members 
left, who had the welfare of the church at heart, for 
that first service. Could they have glimpsed the 
future they would not have been anxious. As has been 
said, that first service was electrical. The second Sun- 
day saw the place dangerously crowded. The building 
was thronged, and people stood upon the sidewalk at 
both morning and evening service. Lexington realized 
that the church had come to life, and there was some- 
thing so vital in this new life that the town was stirred. 
But it was not mere curiosity that attracted the people. 
It was a recognition of the fact that the Gospel of 
Christ was being given to them in a form that practically 
and helpfully entered into their lives, and they were 
eager for it. 


HIS FIRST PASTORATE 177 


The crowds and the interest shown pointed out to 
Conwell the need of a larger building, but he felt that 
it would be useless to say anything upon the subject 
to the present members. How could he ask a congre- 
gation, whose previous attendance fell at times as low 
as five or six, and whose former collections—though 
the members gave nobly and self-sacrificingly—were 
usually less than a dollar on Sunday, and in whose 
treasury at his coming was but a dollar and a half, 
to erect a new church building? Indeed, the treasurer 
of the church said laughingly, in regard to the dollar 
and a half that was on hand: ‘‘We were so thankful 
that in his letter saying he would come and preach that 
first Sunday, he wrote, ‘I will take no pay,’ for we 
needed that dollar and a half to fix the door latch.”’ 

Surely never was the outlook for building a church 
more hopeless. But Colonel Conwell is not a man to 
give much time to viewing the obstacles in his path. 
It is the need to which he gives the most of his attention 
and, if this seems definite enough, he believes the very 
fact of the need implies a supply. 

As he knew it would be useless to propose to the 
church members to build a new church, Colonel Con- 
well started the work himself. Bright and early upon 
the Monday morning after his second Sunday at Lex- 
ington, he appeared with saw and hammer and began 
tearing away the steps that had broken down under 
the pushing and stamping of the crowd. Vigorously he 
went to work. The neighborhood was aroused by 
the sounds of blows, the rending of boards and the 
falling of timbers. By night the most dilapidated parts 
of the old building were gone and only a fraction of the 
original porch remained. 

But more had been done than the tearing down of @ 
building. That day’s work had aroused Lexington 


178 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


and the whole town was talking about it. For not 
only was the old building almost razed, but a large 
amount of money had been subscribed toward a new one. 
Every one who had stopped and asked what was going 
on had been told the church’s need. The first person 
had voluntarily given one hundred dollars. Others, 
when told of the gift, had added what they could. 
And when Colonel Conwell laid down his pick one 
evening he had nearly five thousand dollars toward the 
new edifice. 

“The church members could not object to building 
a church when I told them how much money I had 
secured toward it,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye, 
as he recalled those days. ‘‘The question was settled 
without any discussion or doubt.” 

If Colonel Conwell’s preaching had been electrical 
in its effect upon Lexington, his method of building a 
new church was even more so. Equally so were the 
other activities that quickly followed. While the 
church was being made over, the services were held | 
in the Town Hall, in which was also held a fair to raise 
money for the building fund. This fair was unlike any- 
thing of the kind that had ever been held before in 
Lexington. 

The whole of the Town Hall was used for it. 
Upstairs was a restaurant in which meals were ready 
at all hours. On the balcony was an old-fashioned 
kitchen in which was served all manner of old-time 
dishes—cider-apple sauce, doughnuts, baked beans and 
other famous New England delicacies. When the 
dinner was prepared a man in the uniform of a Colonial 
soldier came out on the balcony, blew a silver trumpet, 
announced that dinner was now served, and read the 
ménu. 

Kiverything imaginable in merchandise was on sale 


HIS FIRST PASTORATE. 179 


from farming tools to the daintiest of hand embroidery. 
Orders were taken for the winter’s supply of vegetables, 
or for coal or wood. Anything anybody needed was 
furnished if possible. The only exception was dry- 
goods by the yard. The fair cleared $1,600. 

This event stirred the town and the neighboring 
community profoundly. Everyone was talking about 
it and the church work it stood for. One of the pleas- 
ing incidents was the action taken by the Roman 
Catholics of the community. Sometime previously the 
Roman Catholic church of the town had given a supper. 
The church did not have enough dishes and tried to 
borrow supplies from the various Protestant churches 
of Lexington, but without success. Finally application 
was made to Colonel Conwell for whatever his church 
might have. He gladly loaned the dishes at his dis- 
posal and, when payment was offered, refused it. 

The Catholics were not unappreciative and, when 
the fair for Conwell’s church opened, the priest speci- 
ally addressed his congregation in regard to it. He 
told them how kind the Baptist church had been in 
helping them and said to his parishioners, ‘‘I want you 
to go to that fair and spend money. Don’t only buy a 
ticket to goin. But buy something at the fair.” As 
the Roman Catholic church had a membership of about 
a thousand, their good-will and help had much to do 
with the success of the fair. 

A Young People’s Society was formed, a Bible class 
for young men organized and many entertainments were 
given. Activity was the word and the church was 
thoroughly alive. Everyone connected with it was 
set to work doing something. Energy seemed to flow 
from it in many directions and to reach many circles. 

Colonel Conwell’s method of choosing a Sunday- 
school superintendent is indicative of the simple and 


12 


380 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


direct manner in which he worked. His knowledge of 
men told him that a certain member of the church 
would make a good Sunday-school superintendent, but 
he knew that the man if asked would refuse from 
timidity and self-distrust, as he had never filled any 
public position. 

Conwell, however, knew the real capabilities of the 
man and that all that was needed was for the man him- 
self to discover them. So he arranged a little social 
gathering of church members at the man’s house and, at 
the psychological moment, introduced him as the new 
Sunday-school superintendent. Of course the man 
protested; but Colonel Conwell held to his point, agree- 
ing that he would himself be on hand, if desired, to 
make an address, but that the other could easily attend 
to the routine work. At last the man agreed, and ‘‘he 
made one of the best Sunday-school superintendents 
Lexington ever had,” said one of members who had 
been present at the affair, in concluding her recital of 
this event. ‘‘Why, we no more thought he would make 
a superintendent than a butterfly would. But Mr. 
Conwell was right.” 

Music was an important part of the church services, 
and it was not long before the church was said to have 
the best music within ten miles of Boston. In describ- 
ing the rdle music played in the church work, a member 
said, ‘‘Mr. Conwell would usually arrive a half hour 
or so before the service, and, seated at the organ, would 
play and sing and conduct a general musical service in 
which the assembling congregation joined. It brought 
tears to every one’s eyes to hear him sing ‘ Where is my 
wandering boy tonight?’”’ 

The finances of the church improved immediately, as 
collections increased from a few dollars to an average of 
about eighty dollars a Sunday. Not only did the fairs 


HIS FIRST PASTORATE 181 


and entertainments bring in considerable money for 
the work going forward, but individually the people 
of Lexington gave generously. In speaking of the 
liberal financial support received, a member of the 
church said that a friend had remarked to him, apropos 
of the financial record the church was making, “‘If any- 
body had asked me two years ago, ‘How much can 
these Baptists raise, I would have said six cents. I 
would not even have made it six and a quarter.’”’ 
In the eighteen months Colonel Conwell was there 
the church raised $8,000. 

He lived at Newton Center—ten miles distant—and 
drove to Lexington. On one of these trips he lost his 
necktie, and his little daughter Nima who was with 
him was quite horrified at the thought of her father 
preaching without anecktie. But such trivialities did 
not bother him. At another time the horse ran away, 
and he was thrown and sprained his ankle; but he 
limped into the pulpit on an improvised crutch. In 
the winter he often had to shovel his way through 
snowdrifts; yet such things did not deter him. Love 
for the work so filled him that anything extraneous to it 
did not count. 

Nor did Colonel Conwell confine himself solely to 
routine church services or activities. The spirit of 
religion he believed should pervade all of life’s enter- 
prises, and so he entered sympathetically and heartily 
into all the interests of Lexington. He was as ready 
to help any person or any interest of the town as he was 
those under his immediate charge. His earnest desire 
to be of service to his fellow-men was not bounded by 
creed or class. | 

In one section of Lexington was a somewhat rough 
element. It was Pastor Conwell’s wish to reach these 
people. One night in passing through the streets of this 


182 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


district, he met a crowd of boisterous young men 
singing on the corner. He approached them; said 
a few words in praise of their singing, and then 
remarked, ‘‘Come up and sing for me at the church. 
Your voices are just what I want. Bring your friends 
if you want to.” 

His invitation was met with scoffing and jeers, but he 
persisted, and finally persuaded them to come. They 
were at the next service and became regular attendants. 
Many of them reformed and became respectable and 
useful members of the community. 

Colonel Conwell also did much other personal work. 
It is told in Lexington how he sat up night after night 
with a man well-known and liked, but addicted to 
alcoholism, to prevent him from going out and becom- 
ing intoxicated. In the business life of Lexington 
he became an important factor. He was a keen 
business man as well as a preacher and had 
been interested—both in Minneapolis and in Boston 
—in building up communities. He saw business 
possibilities in Lexington which had not been made 
the most of, so he undertook to develop the town 
commercially. 

At Conwell’s invitation the Governor of the State, 
Honorable John D. Long, visited the place. Large 
business enterprises were started and strongly sup- 
ported by the townspeople. From the date of Colonel 
Conwell’s installment as pastor, the town took on a 
new lease of life. He showed them what could be done 
and encouraged them to do it. Strangers were wel- 
comed to the town, and its unusual beauty became a 
topic of conversation. The railroad managers heard 
of its attractiveness and provided better accommoda- 
tions for travelers. Conwell himself had sae | and 
distributed the following card: 


HIS FIRST PASTORATE 183 


THE HILLS AND VALLEYS OF LEXINGTON 


Are now open for the residence of business men, and 
the advantages of the town may be briefly stated as follows: 
First, official statistics show it to be one of the healthiest 
localities in the State; Second, its lands are nearly three 
hundred feet above the sea level; Third, the water is so 
pure, that an analysis of some of the springs show but a 
trace of difference between them and the celebrated Poland 
Springs, said to be so valuable in kidney diseases; Fourth, 
the location is away from the piercing east winds, although 
only ten miles from Boston; Fifth, there are eleven trains 
each way every week-day and more wili soon be put on the 
road; Sixth, it is an historic town, known over the whole 
civilized world; Seventh, its houses and lands and farms 
are valuable and so cheap that every citizen can afford to 
have at least a large garden tract; Eighth, the people are 
descendants of old New England stock, enterprising, indus- 
trious, social, cultured and intelligent; Ninth, its schools 
are not excelled by those of any other town in the State; 
Tenth, its public library, its gas company, its local stores, 
markets, etc., are now fully equal to the demand of the time; 
Eleventh, there are four religious denominations having 
houses. of worship—Unitarian, Orthodox-Congregational, 
Catholic, and Baptist. 

The writer of this card has no financial interest whatever 
in the sale of any real estate or other property, but will gladly 
answer any inquiries about the town or its places of resi- 
dence, either personally or by mail. 


RUSSELL H. CONWELL, 


Room B, Tremont Temple. 
March, 1881. 


184 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


One of the town officers writing at that time says: 
‘Lexington can never forget the benefit Mr. Conwell 
conferred during his stay in the community.” 

The beginning of all this work Colonel Conwell did 
before he was ordained, as he merely had a license to 
preach. When he made the definite decision to enter 
the ministry, he immediately enrolled at Newton Theo- 
logical Seminary and pursued his studies there during 
the busy days of preaching and building at Lexington. 

Russell Conwell was ordained in the year 1879. The 
council of churches called for his ordination met in 
Lexington and President Alvah Hovey, of Newton Sem- 
inary, presided. Among the members of the council 
was his life-long friend, George W. Chipman, of Boston 
—the same good deacon who had taken him, a runaway 
boy, into the Sunday-school of Tremont Temple. The 
only objection to the ordination was made by one of 
the pastors present who said, ‘‘Good lawyers are too 
scarce to be spoiled by making ministers of them.” 

: Fora year and a half he thus labored. A new church 
was built. The Baptists of Lexington were working 
with an enthusiasm and a consecration they had not 
experienced for years. The town itself was stirred to 
new life, new activities. Then a call came to larger 
work. He resigned the pastorate at Lexington to 
come to Philadelphia to enter upon what has proven to 
be his great life work—a work which has benefited 
thousands upon thousands of the people of this country. 





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CHAPTER XIX 


Tue Earty Days oF THE PHILADELPHIA 
PASTORATE 


The Beginning of Grace Baptist Church. A Letter 
Describing a Church Service. John Wanamaker’s 
Tribute to Doctor Conwell’s ‘Different’? Methods. 
The Growth of the Church. 


Conwell came was, in a sense, in almost as sore 

straits as the one to which he had gone in 

Lexington. It was started in 1870 as a little 
mission in a rapidly developing section in the northern 
part of the city. A number of young men from the 
Tenth Baptist Church, seeing the need for religious 
Services in this district, secured a hall at Twelfth 
Street and Montgomery Avenue and began holding 
meetings. 

The work prospered and finally a clergyman was 
employed to take full charge. Under his ministry the 
mission became still more successful. In 1872, evan- 
gelistic services were held which brought a large increase 
in the membership. It was then decided to form an 
independent church; and Grace Baptist Church was 
formally organized, February 12, 1872, with forty-seven 
members. 

The membership soon outgrew the accommodations 
of the hall, and steps were taken to secure larger quar- 
ters. A lot was purchased at Berks and Mervine 
Streets and a tent, with a seating capacity of five 
hundred was erected. This was the first ‘‘church 
home” of the members of Grace Baptist Church. 

(185) 


ie church in Philadelphia to which Russell 


186 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


But the little church was growing rapidly in members. 
Soon the tent could no longer accommodate those who 
wished to attend, and the problem of erecting a church 
building confronted the band of workers. ‘This step 
was finally decided upon. The tent was moved to a 
neighboring lot, where it was used for mission work, 
after the church services in it were discontinued. Home- 
less wanderers were given food and shelter in it, and 
helped to a useful life. From this work grew the 
Sunday Breakfast Association of Philadelphia. 

The edifice for Grace Baptist Church went rapidly 
forward. In 1875, the membership was able to use the 
basement of the building. But troubled days came; 
bills could not be met; judgments were entered, and 
finally the sheriff descended and foreclosed. But, after 
much persuasion, the mortgagor was induced to wait 
and the little band of workers bent with fresh energy 
to the task of raising the money and holding their 
church together. 

This was the condition Russell Conwell was asked to 
meet when the call was made to him—an unfinished 
building with a mortgage of $15,000 upon it. But 
failure and debt did not daunt him. He had seen how 
hard work and determination could overcome both. 
The only point to be considered was, ‘‘Did the cause 
of Christneed his services heremore than in Lexington?” 
This was the only issue with him. 

He came to Philadelphia and looked over the field. 
He quickly saw that a live church could do much good 
in the rapidly developing section in which this church 
was situated. And the earnestness of the church 
members—their willingness to work and _ sacrifice— 
touched him. They were of a spirit kindred to his 
own and he decided to accept the call. 

To many of those interested in his welfare, Russell 


EARLY PHILADELPHIA PASTORATE 187 


Conwell’s decision again seemed an act of folly. To 
relinquish work that was proving highly successful, and 
which was giving him an influential position in the 
community, in order to take charge of a church that 
was on the verge of failure, appeared to many to show 
an utter lack of wisdom. But worldly standards' had 
little weight with Doctor Conwell. When he was 
once convinced there was a work to be done, he went 
ahead and did it. 

His congregation in Lexington was loath to give him 
up. But when he pointed out the precarious condition 
of the Philadelphia church; how the people there were 
saying what practically the Lexington congregation 
had said, ** Help us to save the church;”’ how the church 
at Lexington could go forward of its own impetus, and 
that in this new field he could be more useful, they 
sorrowfully acquiesced in his decision. 

“It was a sad day in Lexington,” said a member of 
that church, ‘“‘when he preached his farewell sermon. 
But we believed that the church in Philadelphia needed 
him more than we did, and that he could do a greater 
work there than he could in Lexington. And so we 
agreed regretfully to his going.” 

Doctor Conwell entered upon his duties on Thanks- 
giving Day, 1882. He at once went to work with 
characteristic energy—preaching, planning, organizing 
and getting the people busy. He followed no traditions 
or conventions, unless they could be of use in the work 
he was doing. He surveyed the field and studied the 
people. Then he began in the most simple, direct and 
effective manner to accomplish what needed to be done 
with the means at hand. 

His sermons were simple, direct, full of homely illus- 
trations that stayed in the memory and enabled his 
hearers to make the spiritual truths he preached a part 


188 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


of their everyday life. (See Appendix for Sermon 
Outlines.) A Methodist minister from Albany 
who happened to be in Philadelphia in the early 
days of Russell Conwell’s pastorate, gave, in a letter 
home, a good description of one of Doctor Conwell’s 
sermons and of the entire service. He wrote: 

‘“‘T arrived at the church a full hour before the eve- 
ning service. There was a big crowd at the front door 
another at the side entrance. I was determined to get 
in, so I waited. I was dreadfully squeezed, but finally 
got through the back entrance and stood in the rear of 
the pretty church. All the camp chairs were already. 
taken; also the extra seats. The church was rather 
fancifully frescoed; but it is an architectural gem. It 
is half amphitheatrical in design; is longer than wide; 
and the choir gallery and organ are over the preacher’s 
head. It looks, underneath, like an old-fashioned 
sounding board; but it is neat and pretty. The carpet 
and cushions are bright red, and the windows are full of 
mottoes and designs; but in the evening, under the 
brilliant lights, the figures could not be clearly seen. 

‘‘'There was an unusual spirit of homeness about the 
place, such as I never felt in a church before—I was not 
alone in feeling it. The moment I stood in the audience 
room, an agreeable sense of rest and pleasure came 
over me—and everyone else appeared to feel the same. 
There was none of the stiff restraint most churches 
have. Everybody moved about and greeted each other 
with an ease that was very pleasant, indeed. I saw 
some people abusing the liberty of the place by whis- 
pering, even during the sermon. They may have been 
strangers and evidently belonged to the lower classes. 
But it was a curiosity to notice the liberty everyone took 
at a pause in the service, and the close attention there 
was when the reading or speaking began. 








RUSSELL H. CONWELL WHEN HE ENTERED THE MINISTRY 


AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-SEVEN 





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EARLY PHILADELPHIA PASTORATE 189 


‘All the people sang. I think Doctor Conwell has 
a strong liking for the old hymns. Of course I noticed 
this selection of Wesley’s favorite. A little boy in front of 
me stood upon the pew when the congregation rose and 
piped out in song with all his power, just like a spring 
canary. It was difficult to tell whether the strong 
voice of the preacher, or the chorus choir, led most 
in the singing. A well-dressed lady near me said, 
‘Good evening’ most cheerfully, as a polite usher 
showed me into a pew. They say that all the 
members do that. It made me feel welcome. She 
also gave me a hymn book. I saw others thus kindly 
greeted. How it did help me to praise the Lord! 
At home with the people of God! That is just how 
I felt. 

“T was greatly disappointed in the preacher. Agree- 
ably so, after all. I expected to see an old man and he 
did not appear to be over thirty-five. He was awk- 
wardly tall. I had expected some eccentric and 
sensational affair. I do not know just what, but I had 
been told many strange things. I think now it was 
envious misrepresentation. The whole service was as 
simple as simple can be—and it was surely as sincere 
as simple. The reading of the hymns was so natural 
and distinct that they had a new meaning tome. The 
prayer was very short, and offered in homely language. 
At its close the minister paused a moment for silent 
prayer, and every one seemed to hold his breath in the 
deepest, real reverence. It was so different from my 
expectations. 

“Then came the collection. It was not an asking for 
money at all. The preacher put his notice of it the 
other way about. He said, “The people who wish to 
worship God by giving their offering into the trust of 
the church could place it in the baskets which would be 


190 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


passed to any one who wanted to give.’ The basket 
that went down by me to the altar was full of money and 
envelopes. Yet no one was asked to give anything. 
It was all voluntary, and really an offering to the 
Lord. I had never seen such a way of doing things in a 
church collection. I do not know if the minister or 
church require it so. 

‘The church was packed in every corner, and people 
stood in the aisles. The pulpit platform was crowded 
so that the preacher had nothing more than standing 
room. Some people sat on the floor, and a crowd of 
interested boys leaned against the pulpit platform. 
When the preacher arose to speak, I expected some- 
thing strange. It did not seem possible that such a 
crowd could gather year after year, to listen to mere 
plain preaching; for these are degenerate days. The 
minister began so familiarly and easily in introducing 
his text that he was half through his discourse before 
I began to realize that he was actually in his sermon. 
It was the plainest thing possible. I had often heard 
of eloquence and poetic imagination; but there was 
little of either, if we think of the old ideas. There was 
close, continuous attention. He was surely in earnest, 
but made no attempt at oratorical display. _ Of course, 
there were exciting gestures at times, and lofty periods; 
but it was all so natural. 

‘At one point the whole audience burst into laughter 
at a comic illustration, but the preacher went on 
unconscious of it. It detracted nothing from the 
solemn theme. It was what the Chautauqua Herald 
last year called a ‘Conwellian evening.’ It was unlike 
anything I ever saw or heard. Yet it was good to be 
there. The sermon was crowded with illustrations and 
evidently unstudied. They say that Doctor Conwell 
never takes time from his many cares to write a sermon. 


EARLY PHILADELPHIA PASTORATE 191 


That one was surely spontaneous; but it inspired the 
audience to better lives and a higher faith. When he 
suddenly stopped and quickly seized a hymn book, the 
audience drew a long sigh. At once the people moved 
about again and looked at each other and smiled. The 
whole congregation were at one with the preacher. 
There was a low hum of whispering voices. But all was 
attention again when the hymn was read. Then the 
glorious song! One of the finest organists in the 
country—a blind gentlemen named Wood—was the 
power behind the throne. The organ did praise God. 
Every one was carried on in a flood of praise. It was 
rich. 

“The benediction was a continuation of the sermon 
and a closing prayer—all in a single sentence. I have 
never heard one so unique. It fastened the evening’s 
lesson; but was not formal. The benediction was a 
blessing, indeed. It broke every rule of church form. 
It was a charming close, however. No one but Doctor 
Conwell could do it. Probably no one would try. 
Instantly at the close of the service, all the people 
turned to each other, shook hands, and entered into 
familiar conversation. Many spoke to me and advised 
me to come again. ‘There was no restraint. All was 
homelike and happy. It was blessed to be there.”’ 

_ Both Russell Conwell and his work were widely dis- 
cussed, and often harshly criticised. Many said he 
was sensational; but his critics were frequently those 
who had never heard him and who drew their conclu- 
sions from the reports of others, or from distorted 
newspaper accounts. His so-called sensationalism 
consisted only in doing things differently from the way 
they had been done. 

Speaking once of the manner in which people had 
misunderstood and criticised him, Doctor Conwell said 


192 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


with a grim setting of his jaw: ‘“‘I do not do reckless 
things. That would be wrong. But when I think Jam 
doing right, I go ahead, and let people say what they 
will. I take my stand.” 

In speaking of these early days, the Hon. John 
Wanamaker, upon the occasion of a celebration in 
Philadelphia in honor of Doctor Conwell’s seventieth 
birthday, said: 

‘Thirty-one years ago a poor Baptist minister, of 
whom none of us had then heard, came to Philadelphia 
and took. charge of a little, struggling church. Not 
that he was a poor minister, or a poor Baptist, but a 
man whom the world would call financially poor. 

‘““When that same man, then in the early prime of 
splendid manhood, first came to this city, it did not 
take long for the people to discover that in some way 
he was different from the average minister; and there 
are those in this world to whose minds to be ‘different’ 
means to be wrong. His brethern in the ministry of 
all denominations looked upon him first indifferently, 
then curiously and finally many of them with suspicion. 

‘Why should this man take the trouble to do this 
and that and the other thing? Why should he work 
so much harder than his profession required? By 
what magical art did he seem to understand the heart 
of the common people? Wise heads were shaking, and 
it was said: ‘A new broom sweeps clean—but wait 
awhile. It won’t last. He is a sensationalist—a fad- 
dist!’ When the Baptist Temple was projected, there 
were those who called it ‘Conwell’s Folly,’ and a theater 
company joyfully anticipated taking it for their own 
purposes when the inevitable failure should come. 

“Then we remember, when perhaps ten years had 
passed away, hearing the story of a white azalea. We 
violate no confidence, for it was publicly told by a 


ne 


EARLY PHILADELPHIA PASTORATE 193 
minister then prominent in the city, who now has gone 
to the glory land. He confessed to having harbored a 
full share of the suspicion and envy which many others 
felt toward this ‘different’ worker, and that he also was 
waiting for the failure which nearly all prophesied. 

‘‘But one day he was very ill, and a beautiful white 
azalea came to his bedside. At first he almost resented 
it. Why did that man send him a flower? What 
motive was back of it? Did he intend to buy him with 
a present? Well, he wasn’t to be bought—that was all! 
Nevertheless he would watch him, and watch him he did. 
He began to see the motive of a great Christ-like life, 
of which that white flower was just one expression, 
He found Russell Conwell doing little kindnesses here 
and there—to high and low alike. He found a great, 
wide, deep interest in humanity for Christ’s sake such 
as he had found in no other life, such as he presently 
longed for in hisown. And upon the day of that man’s 
funeral, Doctor Conwell said, ‘I feel personally bereaved, 
for in my Philadelphia ministry he was one of my 
earliest, dearest, and most sympathetic friends.’ 

‘The same distrust to which this brother freely con- 
fessed personally, existed in larger circles also—just 
because he was ‘different.’ When he read that Jesus 
went about, ‘preaching, teaching and healing.’ Doctor 
Conwell said,,“That is the model for every organized 
Christian institution; preaching is not enough; there 
must be added teaching the ignorant and healing the 
sick.’ Hence the night school which has grown into the 
Temple University, and the Samaritan Hospital—and 
later the adoption of the Garretson Hospital. 

“When the hospital and university first outgrew the 
possibility of his own personal care, Russell Conwell 
offered them to his denomination—and even plead 
with it to come to his assistance in the responsibility 


f ‘ { ‘ 


194 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


and the harvest. Had his own people recognized him 
then, as they do now, these organizations would have 
undoubtedly been great Baptist institutions. But 
God’s plan was a wider one; it was to place these 
institutions among the great Christian factors of 
human uplift upon a basis as broad as the love of the 
Father Himself; and today they are so recognized. 
Considered in the light of that white azalea’s revelation 
—a, single act that has been duplicated a million times 
in its outshining of an inward Christ-like love for 
everyone in need—this celebration takes on even 
deeper significance.” 

Although criticised and misunderstood, Russell Con- 
well went ahead. The church was soon completed and 
the financial obligations, as they came due, were easily 
met. The church became an influence in the commu- 
nity. Not only was the immediate neighborhood 
stirred, but people from all parts of the city thronged to 
hear him. He soon had Philadelphia as much aroused as 
Lexington, when he began tearing down the old church 
there. The banging of hammers and ripping of saws 
were not any more disturbing to that sleepy, old town 
than were Russell Conwell’s forceful sermons and his 
efficient, practical ways of going about church work 
to Philadelphians. 

He was a tireless worker. Day and night he went 
about the duties that devolved upon him. He made 
himself intimately acquainted with the members of his 
church family and entered sympathetically into their 
ambitions and interests. Such personal history as they 
cared to tell him was not forgotten and he was ever 
ready to advise and help. His manner was so simple 
and informal that no one felt any hesitation in going 
to him for counsel, and the practical suggestions he 
gave—-drawn from his own wide experience of men and 


EARLY PHILADELPHIA PASTORATE 195 


affairs—were right to the point in solving problems and 
lifting burdens. 

The same spirit permeated the membership. The 
church fairly radiated kindliness, cheer and _ help. 
Religion was not merely preached as being able to give 
satisfaction to life; but the fact was demonstrated. 
Such work of pastor and people could not but tell. The 
church became more and more crowded. In less than 
a year—although the seating capacity was increased to 
twelve hundred—people stood throughout the services. 
It finally became necessary to admit the members 
by tickets at the rear, as it was almost impossible for 
them to get through the throngs of strangers at the 
front. Upon request, cards of admission were sent 
to those who desired them. 

This was one of the things for which Russell Con- 
well was much criticised. Word went about the city 
that admission to ‘‘Conwell’s church’’—as it was at 
that time scoffingly called by some—was only by 
ticket; and others went so far as to say that one had to 
pay for these tickets. This is but one illustration of the 
misunderstanding and criticism that first met him, and 
of how little foundation there was for it. Anyone 
could enter by the front door who wished to become 
one of the crowd and wait; but it was impossible for 
members to get through this crowd in time to reach 
their seats for the beginning of the service. Always 
many were turned away. So, for the convenience of 
the members and strangers, who perhaps could not 
come again if they missed a certain service, tickets 
of admission were instituted. But even these, though 
they simplified the process of entering the building, 
did not provide additional accommodations. In 
greater and greater numbers were people turned away. 

‘““T am glad,’’ Russell Conwell once remarked to a 


13 


196 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 
friend ‘‘when I get up Sunday morning and can look out 
of the window and see it snowing, sleeting and raining, 
and hear the wind shriek and howl. ‘There,’ I say, 
‘as I preach this morning, I won’t have to look at people 
patiently standing through the service, wherever there 
is a foot of standing room.’ ” 

The membership rose from two hundred to more 
than five hundred within two years, and the question 
began to shape itself in the minds of the pastor and 
people, ‘What shall we do?” As a partial solution, 
the proposition was made to divide into three churches; 
but each section wanted Doctor Conwell as pastor, 
so the idea was abandoned. 

Still the membership grew, and the need for larger 
quarters faced them and could not be evaded. The house 
next door was purchased, which gave increased space 
for the work of the Sunday-school and the various 
associations. But it was a mere drop in the bucket. 
Every room was filled to overflowing with eager workers 
before the ink was fairly dry on the deed of transfer. 
Then into this busy crowd, wondering what should be 
done, came a little child, and with one simple act cleared 
the mist from their eyes and pointed the way for them 
to go. 


CHAPTER XX 
A CuHItp’s LEGACY 


The Beginning of the Building Fund of the Baptist 
Temple. 


old, came to the church building at Berks and 

Mervine Streets to attend Sunday-school. 

But, large as the Sunday-school was, there was 
not room for even one more tiny child. Other little girls 
had been turned away that day, and still others on 
Sundays before. And so she was told there was no 
place for her. 

It was a bitter disappointment. Hattie did not take 
it as other children had done; sobs that came from the 
heart shook her as she went home, and tears rolled 
down her cheeks as she told her mother that she could 
not go to this Sunday-school because there was not 
room. She dwelt upon her disappointment all the 
afternoon and when bedtime came, and she said her 
evening prayer, she included in it a special petition 
that a place might be found for her in the Sunday- 
school. 

But this was not enough. Doubtless she had heard 
some word dropped about faith and works, or, perhaps, 
her childish mind thought it out for herself. No one 
knows what led to the resolve; but she arose in the 
morning with the determination to save her pennies 
and build a larger Sunday-school. 

To older persons it might have seemed a big under- 
taking, but to her simple faith, it did not seem impos- 

(197) 


() Sunday afternoon, Hattie Wiatt, six years 


198 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


sible. From her childish treasures she took a little red 
pocketbook, and into this she put her pennies. The 
temptations that assailed Hattie to spend those pennies, 
none but her own heart knew. But she did not waver 
in her purpose. Day by day the little hoard increased 
and, as she counted it, her eyes grew bright and her 
heart light at the thought of the Sunday-school that 
was to be. 

But there were only a few weeks of her planning, 
hoping and saving. The little Temple builder fell ill. 
She was sick but a brief time, and then the grim reaper 
knocked at the door of the Wiatt home and bore the 
unselfish child spirit away. With her dying breath 
she told her mother of her treasure—told her it was 
for Grace Baptist Church to build. 

In the little red pocketbook was just fifty-seven cents. 
That was her legacy. With swelling heart, Doctor 
Conwell reverently took it and, with misty eyes and 
broken voice, he told the congregation of the little 
one’s gift. 

“When we heard how God had blessed us with so 
great an inheritance, there was silenee—the silence of 
tears and earnest consecration,’’ said a member in 
describing the event. ‘‘We felt that the corner-stone 
of the new church was laid.”’ 


CHAPTER XxXI 
BUILDING THE TEMPLE 


How a Poor Congregation Built One of the Finest 
Church Edifices in the Country. Doctor Conwell’s 
Ideas as to What a Church Edifice Should Be Like. 
His Own Plans for The Temple. His Warnings 
Against the Perils of Success. 


as to what the church should do to relieve the 

overcrowding. The decision was made at once 

to build. But it was no light task that con- 
fronted the membership. They were men and women 
who toiled for their daily bread, and there was no one 
among them to aid by large contributions. 

It may be helpful to other struggling churches to 
briefly recount how this church raised the money to 
build. Since they were a people with no one among 
them to give largely, and yet succeeded in building 
one of the largest, handsomest and most valuable 
church edifices in the country, no other church mem- 
bership—no matter how unfavorable may seem the 
prospect of success—need hesitate to go forward into 
large work if the need is imperative. 

It was not a question simply of giving. What was 
given had to be saved. Few could give outright and 
not feel it. Incomes for the most part just covered 
living expenses; and expenses had to be cut down, 1f 
incomes were to be stretched to build the church. So 
these practical people put their wits to work to save 
money. Walking clubs were organized—not for 

(199) 


[ astox WIATT?’S legacy settled the question 


200 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


vigorous cross-country tramps in search of pleasure 
and health—but with an earnest determination to save 
carfare for the building fund. 

Tired men, with muscles aching from a hard day’s 
work, and women, weary with a long day behind the 
counter or at the typewriter, cheerfully trudged home 
and saved the nickels. Men ceased to smoke tobacco; 
women economized in dress and vacations in the sum- 
mer were dropped. Even the boys and girls saved their 
pennies, as little Hattie Wiatt had done—and the 
money poured into the treasury in astonishing amounts, 
considering how small was each individual gift. All of 
these sacrifices helped to endear the place to those who 
wove their hopes and prayers about it. 

Another effort that brought splendid results was the 
giving out of little earthen jugs in the early summer to 
be brought to the ‘‘harvest home” in September with 
their garnerings. It was a joyous evening when the 
jugs were brought in. A supper was held and, while 
the church members enjoyed themselves at the tables, 
the committee on the platform broke the jugs, counted 
the money and announced the amount. 

Innumerable entertainments were held at the church 
and at the homes of the members. Suppers were given 
in Fairmount Park during the summer and every worthy 
plan for raising money that clever brains could devise 
and willing hands accomplish was used to swell the 
building fund. 

A fair was held in one of the largest halls of Philadel- 
phia in the central part of the city. It was as electrical 
in thoroughly awakening Philadelphia to what this live 
church in the northern part of the city was doing, as 
had been the fair at Lexington. As at Lexington, 
almost everything salable was on hand. Meals were 
served and orders were taken for supplies that could 


BUILDING THE TEMPLE 201 


not be handled at the hall. The affair was planned 
along business lines; conducted in a practical, sensible 
fashion—and it went with a vim. It was visited by 
thousands of people and netted nearly nine thousand 
dollars toward the building fund. 

The underlying principle of this effort in behalf of 
the building fund was to meet any need that the dis- 
cerning eye of any member could descry, or to devise 
a new way to raise money that would appeal by its 
novelty. The various methods employed would prob- 
ably not serve now; but the principle holds good when- 
ever and wherever such work needs to be done. 

By all these various channels, funds flowed in, and 
in September, 1886, the lot on which The Temple now 
stands at Broad and Berks Streets was purchased. 
The price was $25,000, but only fifty-seven cents, little 
Hattie Wiatt’s legacy, was paid down. The beginning 
thus made, the work for the building fund was pushed, 
if possible, with even greater vigor. Ground was broken 
for The Temple on March 27, 1889. The corner-stone 
was laid on July 18, 1890, and on the first of March, 
1891, the structure was occupied for worship. 

But raising money and erecting a building did not 
stop the spiritual work of the church. Rather it 
increased it. People heard of the church through the 
fairs and various other efforts to raise money, came 
to the services—perhaps out of curiosity at first—were 
awakened to the needs of the spirit, and joined. Never 
did the spiritual light of the church burn more brightly 
than in those days of hard work and self-denial. The 
membership steadily rose and, when Grace Church 
moved into its new temple of worship, more than 
twelve hundred members answered the muster roll. 

The only large amount received toward the building 
fund was a gift of $10,000, on condition that the church 


202 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


be not dedicated until it was free of debt. In a legal 
sense, calling a building by the name of the congrega- 
tion worshiping in it is a dedication, and so the struc- 
ture, instead of being named the Grace Baptist Church, 
was called the Baptist Temple—a name which will 
probably cling to it as long as one stone stands upon 
another. , 

The first Sunday in The Temple was a day long 
remembered by its members. ‘‘During the opening 
exercises, over nine thousand people were present at 
each service,’’ said the Philadelphia Press in describ- 
ing the event, ‘The throng overflowed into the Lower 
Temple and into the old church building. The whole 
neighborhood was full of the joyful members of the 
Grace Baptist Church, and the very air seemed to 
thrill with the spirit of thanksgiving abroad that day. 
All that Sabbath—from sunrise until close to midnight— 
members thronged the building with prayers of thank- 
fulness and praise welling up from glad hearts.”’ Writ- 
ing from London several years later, Doctor Conwell 
voiced in words what had been in his mind when the 
church was planned: 

‘‘T heard a sermon which helped me greatly. It was 
delivered by an old preacher, and the subject was, ‘This 
God is our God.’ He described the attributes of God 
in glory, knowledge, wisdom and love, and compared 
Him to the gods that the heathens worship. He then 
pressed upon us the message that this glorious God is 
the Christian’s God, and that with Him we cannot 
want. It did me so much good and made me long for 
more of God in all my feelings, actions and influence. 
The seats were hard; the back of the pew hard and 
high; the church dusty and neglected; yet, in spite of 
all the discomforts, I was blessed. I was sorry for the 
preacher who had to preach amid all those discomforts, 
and did not wonder at the thin congregation. 


BUILDING THE TEMPLE 203 


“Oh! it is all wrong to make it so unnecessarily hard 
to listen to the gospel. They ought for Jesus’ sake to 
tear out the old benches and put in comfortable chairs. 
There was present an air of perfunctoriness and lack of 
object, which made the service indefinite and aimless. 
This is a common fault. We lack an object and do not 
aim at anything special in our services. That, too, is 
all wrong. Each hymn, each chapter read, each anthem, 
each prayer, and each sermon should have a special 
and appropriate purpose. May the Lord help me— 
after my return—to profit by this day’s lesson.” 

No hard benches and no air of cold dreariness marks 
The Temple. The exterior is beautiful and graceful in 
design, and the interior both cheery and homelike in 
furnishing. Doctor Conwell sketched the plans for 
The Temple himself and the building embodies his ideas 
of what a church edifice should be. These rough drafts 
were given to the architect, who drew them to measure- 
ment and put them into practical form for materializa- 
tion in stone. 

The Baptist Temple is of hewn stone, with a frontage 
on Broad Street of one hundred and seven feet, a 
depth on Berks Street of one hundred and fifty feet, 
and is ninety feet in height. On the front is a beautiful 
half-rose window of rich stained glass; and on the 
Berks Street side there are a number of smaller 
memorial windows, each depicting some beautiful 
Biblical scene or thought. Above the rose window on 
the front is a small iron balcony upon which the church 
orchestra and choir often played sacred melodies 
and sang hymns on special occasions, such as Christmas 
Eve, New Year’s Eve and Easter, thus filling the hours 
with melody and delighting thousands of interested 
spectators. Of late years this custom has been replaced 
by a large electric cross that can be seen for miles 
blazing against the midnight sky. 


204 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


The auditorium of The Temple is one of the largest 
among Protestant church edifices in the United States. 
Its original seating capacity, according to the archi- 
tect’s plans, was forty-two hundred opera chairs; but, 
to secure greater comfort and safety, only thirty-one 
hundred and thirty-five chairs were used. 

Under the auditorium and below the level of the 
street is the Lower Temple. Here, also, are many 
beautiful stained-glass windows. In this part are the 
Sunday-school rooms with a seating capacity of two 
thousand. One of these rooms also answers for the 
dining-room, in which five hundred can be seated; and 
folding tables and hundreds of chairs are stowed away 
in the nearby store rooms. 

Adjoining the dining-room are the rooms of the 
various associations of the church; and the kitchen, 
carving-room and cloak-room. ‘The rooms of the 
various societies are pleasantly furnished and home- 
like. In pantries and cupboards is an outfit of china 
and table cutlery sufficient for five hundred persons, 
and the kitchen is fully equipped with large ranges, 
hot-water cylinders, sinks and drainage tanks. The 
annex beyond the kitchen contains the boilers and 
engines and the electric light plant. All appoint- 
ments here are modern. 

The steam heating of the building is supplied by 
four 100-horse-power boilers. In the engine-room are 
two 135-horse-power engines directly connected with 
dynamos having a capacity of twenty-five hundred 
lights, which are controlled by a switchboard in this 
room. The electrician is on duty every day, giving 
his entire time to the management of this plant. 
The building is also supplied with gas, and behind 
the puplit is a small closet containing a friction 
wheel, by means of which, should the electric light 


BUILDING THE TEMPLE 205 


fail for any reason, every gas jet in The Temple can 
be lighted from dome to basement. For cleaning the 
church there has been installed a vacuum plant which 
does the work quickly and thoroughly. 

In the rear of the auditorium on the street floor are 
the business offices of the church, Doctor Conwell’s 
study, and the offices of his secretary, and associate 
pastor. The offices are equipped with desks, filing 
cabinets, telephones, speaking tubes, and everything 
necessary to conduct the business of the church in a 
business-like way. 

The acoustics of the great auditorium are practi- 
cally perfect. There is probably no building on this 
continent with an equal capacity which enables the 
preacher to speak and the hearers to listen with such 
perfect comfort. The weakest voice is carried to the 
farthest auditor, and lecturers who have tested the 
acoustics of halls in every state in the Union speak 
with praise and pleasure of The Temple. 

At one time telephonic communication was installed 
between the auditorium and the Samaritan Hospital 
and private homes. Patients in their beds and people 
in their homes could hear the sermon and the music 
of the Sunday services. In fact, a sermon was once 
taken down in shorthand, in Newark, by this tele- 
phone service, which was later discontinued because of 
the cost. 

A helpful device has been installed for those of the 
congregation who do not hear well. In front of the 
desk on the pulpit is asmall apparatus—the audiphone— 
by which the speaker’s voice is carried to a device in 
certain seats. This device is connected with an ear- 
piece and thus those who otherwise could not hear are 
enabled to enjoy what is said on the platform. These 
ear pieces are furnished free in the business office of 


206 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the church upon request, though many who use them 
regularly have their own. 

Compared with other assembly rooms in this country, 
the auditorium of The Temple is a model. It seats 
3,185 persons. The Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 
seats 2,900; the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, 2,433; 
the Academy of Music, New York, 2,488; the Grand 
Opera House, Cincinnati, 2,250; and the Music Hall, 
Boston, 2,585. 

The walls of the first floor of the church are finished 
with glazed tiles in a soft pinkish tint, that is restful 
to the eye and harmonizes with the furnishings of the 
church. In each tile is burnt the name of the giver or 
the name of some one the donor may desire to honor. 
It was a method of raising money for the church that 
not only proved very successful but very pleasing to 
the membership. ‘The tiles are substantial and are 
substantially set into the walls and will remain while 
the building stands. 

But greater than the building is the spirit that per- 
vades it. The moment one enters the vast auditorium 
with its crimson chairs, its cheery carpet, its softly- 
tinted walls, one feels at home. Light filters in through 
rich windows, in memory of some member gone before, 
or of some class or organization. Behind the pulpit 
stands the organ, its rich-looking pipes rising almost 
to the roof. Everywhere is rich, subdued coloring— 
not ostentatious, but cheery and homelike. 

Large as is the seating capacity of ‘The Temple, when 
it was opened it could not accommodate the crowds 
that thronged it. Almost from the first, overflow 
meetings were held in the Lower Temple, that none 
be turned away from the House of God. From five 
hundred to two thousand people crowded these meet- 
ings in addition to the large audience in the main 
auditorium above. 


BUILDING THE TEMPLE 207 


The Temple workers had come to busy days and 
large opportunities. But they accepted them with a 
full sense of their responsibility and prayed that they 
might use them worthily. Their leader knew the 
perils of success and with wise counsel guided them 
against its insidious dangers. 

‘‘Ah, that is a dangerous hour in the history of men 
and institutions,” Doctor Conwell said, in a sermon 
on the ‘Danger of Success,” ‘‘when they become too 
popular; when a good cause becomes too much admired 
or adored, so that the man, or the institution, or the 
building, or the organization, receives an idolatrous 
worship from the community. That is always a danger- 
ous time, and small men always go down, wrecked by 
such dizzy elevation. Whenever a small man is praised 
he immediately loses his balance of mind and ascribes 
to himself the things which others foolishly express in 
flattery. He esteems himself more than he is and, 
thinking himself to be something, he is consequently 
nothing. 

‘““How dangerous is that point when a man, or a 
women, or an enterprise has become accepted and 
popular! Then, of all times, should a man or the 
society be humble. Then, of all times, should they 
beware. Then, of all times, the hosts of Satan are 
marshaled to overcome by every possible insidious 
wile and open warfare. The weakest hour in the his- 
tory of the greatest enterprises is apt to be when they 
seem to be—and their projectors think they are— 
strongest. Take heed lest ye fall in the hour of your 
strength. The most powerful mill stream drives the 
wheel most vigorously just before the flood sweeps the 
mill to wildest destruction.” 

“The mission of the church is to save the souls of 
men,” he told his congregation. ‘‘That is its true 


208 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


mission. It is the only mission of the church. That 
should be its only thought. The moment any church 
admits a singer that does not sing to save souls; the 
moment a church calls a pastor who does not preach 
to save souls; the moment a church elects a deacon 
who does not work to save souls; the moment a church 
gives a supper or an entertainment of any kind not for 
the purpose of saving souls, it ceases in so much to 
be a church and to fulfil the magnificent mission God 
gave it. Every concert, every choir service, every 
preaching service, every Lord’s Supper, every agency 
that is used in the church must have the great mission 
plainly before its eye. We are here to save souls of 
dying sinners. We are here for no other purpose. 
And the mission of the church being so clear, that is the 
only test of a real church.” 


GHA PDE Re Xa 
How THE TEMPLE Works 


Doctor Conwell Discusses the Church Work and Tells 
the Underlying Principles which He Believes should 
Govern. The Various Organizations. The Temple 

Fairs and their Purpose. Doctor Conwell Gives His 

Ideas of a Church Fair. The Various Entertatn- 

ments. How they are Planned and Managed. 

WN looking at this magnificent church building on 
| Broad Street and the manifold uplifting activities 

it houses; in gazing at the great University adjoin- 

ing, where more than a hundred thousand men and 
women have broadened and made more useful their 
lives, and then glancing backward over the life of Rus- 
sell Conwell, it seems as if a miracle had been wrought— 
a miracle that had flowered forth in visible form in 
these two granite buildings, and in great buildings in 
other parts of the city, but more in the invisible and 
more potent expression in the forces for good that 
flow in a never-ceasing stream from them. 

Of the work of the church Doctor Conwell himself 
says: 

‘Looking back over my life’s work with the Church 
of Christ, all seems unreal. I cannot fully fathom the 
depths of abiding peace, nor understand the powers, 
which have combined to make my life so happy and so 
peaceful amid such a harvest. I could not be honest 
with myself without stating distinctly that it has been 
brought about by persons and powers entirely beyond 
myself and my control. Strange things—unaccount- 

(209) 


210 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


able by any human law or in any known human experi- 
ence—have come into the religious work, which make 
me a firm believer in the interference of a divine Spirit 
who casts down and lifts up at will. 

“The hundreds of consecrated martyrs who worked 
out of sight; the self-sacrificing givers who labored so 
hard to earn the money; the favorable conditions which 
surrounded our work; and the fortunate combina- 
tions in the beginning made by men and women wholly 
consecrated to the cause of Christ, made possible 
what no human genius could have accomplished alone. 
I—here and now—sincerely reject any tributes of 
praise to myself, for I honestly feel that it has been a 
fortunate combination of providences which built up 
the great church in Philadelphia, and which brought 
so many to an open confession of their faith in the Lord. 

““T was often a ‘looker-on in Israel,’ when great 
events were transpiring and when people turned in 
from the streets to seek their Lord. It often appears 
very foolish to assume that the Lord of Heaven would 
care what became of a little missionary church nor 
would give any special attention to the upbuilding of 
one organization—or even of one great denomination. 
Yet it is probably true that the Lord loves each indi- 
vidual and takes as full charge of his private affairs 
as if that individual were the only person living on the 
earth. It is a comfort to believe in such a doctrine. 

‘“‘T have found many people, however, who yet dis- 
believe the statement that just seven different people 
appeared in our congregation every week during five 
full years and stated their desire to find their Lord. 
Summer and winter—rain or shine—holidays or work- 
days—the same number presented themselves without 
any previous attempt to regulate it, to the continued 
astonishment of myself and all the people. There are 








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HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 211 


hundreds of living witnesses that know such to have 
been the fact, by having been present through the 
entire five years. All attempts at an explanation have 
utterly failed to establish any definite reason for such 
a condition of affairs. 

“Of the nearly six thousand people whom I have led 
through the waters of baptism at The Temple in Phila- 
delphia, there has hardly ever been a person who was 
not led to a profession of his religious faith by some 
personal advice or influence—and seldom have any 
evangelistic meetings had a special influence upon the 
number of accessions to the church. They came 
steadily and without crowding, and we seemed to be 
the reapers from the harvest other people sowed. 

“The remarkable history of the great church in its 
harmony, peace and earnest enthusiasm is also some- 
thing exceedingly mysterious. The church member- 
ship have been given the largest liberty and have been 
encouraged to individual enterprises, and must have 
had their eccentricities and sometimes had their con- 
scientious notions. Many of the church must have 
been ambitious for place and power and must have 
recognized the fact that a public position in such a 
conspicuous body was of great value in social, pro- 
fessional or business life; and yet all these desires have 
been subordinated to the greater purpose of keeping 
to the front the needs of humanity as represented in 
the Gospel of Christ. 

‘“‘T do not recall that in the thirty-three years of my 
church life in Philadelphia, there has ever been called 
before the ‘Discipline Committee’ a single member 
accused of wrongdoing in the church. There must have 
been evil persons among the thousands who came and 
went through the membership of the church in those 
years. But the spirit of worship and sincere consecra- 


14 


-212 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


tion was so powerful that such persons either soon left 
the church or repented and turned into the current 
with the rest, without friction or scandal. 

“The ritual of the church and its religious meetings 
were very democratic—even as a congregational body— 
and the absolute freedom of each member in the exer- 
cise of his rights, where each person was the equal of 
every other in all his church rights and obligations, 
made the surprise great. Yet all these kept in abiding 
fellowship and peace, through so many years without 
a disturbance of any kind that is worthy of mention. 

“The membership was composed largely of the 
common people who were dependent on their daily 
wages for their living and for what they could give 
towards the cause of Christ; and many young people 
joined the church who had not chosen their profession, 
or who were beginners in the attempts to take care of 
themselves. And yet, through twenty-five years, 
there was not known to be a single member of that; 
church out of work a month who desired a position. 

‘The social life of the church was so universal and so 
close that each member had the opportunity to make 
friends among the various classes of people, and when 
he saw that he was to be out of employment, it was a 
very easy matter for him or her to mention the fact 
socially to some of his friends in the church; and their 
fraternal interest led them to inquiries and efforts 
which secured another position without referring the 
needs of that person to any formal committee of the 
church. ‘There were no poor people connected with 
the church, so far as the public knew, and church 
members did not hear about the poor fund and did not 
realize that anybody could be in actual need; because 
the personal friendship which existed throughout the 
congregation was such that any poor person, reduced 


HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 213 


to need, would be anticipated and cared for, so that 
there was no necessity fora call for help upon the church 
or upon public funds. 

“‘T once heard that a widow was in probable need—as 
she had been ill for some time and had earned her own 
living for several years—and I sent a member of the 
congregation to visit her and asked him to take a basket 
of provisions. He brought the basket back to my 
office and said that the lady told him that she had 
already had seven baskets which she had not unpacked; 
and that she wished she knew where she could send 
those baskets to people who needed them more than 
she did. The members ever sought for the opportunity 
to do good in that quiet and Christian way, which 
made it a delight to know them and a blessing of God 
to be associated with them in their endeavors to make 
(Christ known to the world by their example.”’ 

At another time Doctor Conwell summed up in a 
few brief sentences the general purposes that ruled 
and the motives that guided in the church work. In 
regard to the church services, he said, ‘‘Generally 
speaking, all church services should be natural—just 
as natural as they can be made. The same means 
should be used in the pulpit to convince men and 
women of the necessity of religious life as one would use 
if talking to a friend on the street.” 

In respect to church growth, he said, “It is not a 
matter of human planning. It is a matter of out- 
growth by the promptings of the spirit. Profound 
consecration to religion will lead a church membership 
to have that faith which will do the next thing. They 
will be led by a power higher than themselves and will 
have no fear.” 

‘The principle for raising money should be,’’ Doctor 
Conwell stated, “ ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and 


214 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


all these things shall be added unto you.’ Any method 
of raising money where you can take your religion 
with you is righteous. But the presence of the spirit 
of Christ should be the first consideration, and the 
making of money secondary.”’ 

He believed that the social side of church work is 
necessary. ‘‘Preaching from the pulpit is not suffi- 
cient,” he said. ‘Individual work is necessary, and 
the social life of the church gives opportunity for this. 
That is the advantage and the necessity for a social side 
to church life.” Doctor Conwell did not believe in 
a mixture of church and politics. ‘‘Teach men to be 
good and the government will be right,’”’ was his creed 
on this point. 

‘“The Sabbath should be kept in the Sabbath spirit,’ 
he said in speaking of the observation of Sunday. ‘It 
is not what one does on Sunday, but the spirit in which 
one does it that counts. If every one would live Sunday 
in the Sabbath-day spirit, we would have no trouble 
as to how Sunday is observed. For the sake of physical 
and mental health, every one requires one day in the 
seven for rest. But there are many ways to rest. One 
eannot limit it or prescribe the method for another. 
But if the real Sabbath-day spirit rules, Sunday will not 
be observed by any one in an unwise fashion.” 

In regard to the general conduct of affairs, Doctor 
Conwell said in an address on ‘The Church:” ‘The 
Church of Christ should be so conducted always as to 
save the largest number of souls. It matters little 
what your theories are or what mine are. God, in His 
providence, is moving His Church onward and upward 
at the same time; adjusting it to new situations; fitting 
it to new conditions; advancing civilization and requir- 
ing us to see the new instrumentalities which He has 
placed in our hands for the purpose of saving the great- 
est number of human souls.” 


HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 215 


With such underlying principles, one can see that the 
work of Grace Baptist Church is elastic and flexible. 
If one were to choose a single word to describe the 
governing principle, it would be ‘‘ Adaptability.’ Gen- 
erally speaking, the members of the church are divided 
into four groups: The women into a Ladies’ Aid or 
some similar society; the men into a business men’s 
organization of some kind; and the young women and 
young men into individual organizations of their own. 
In addition to these there are a number of subsidiary 
societies for special purposes. 

Broadly speaking, the organization in which the 
women of the church are banded stands ready to extend 
its aid to any social, religious, or financial project that 
may arise; to give receptions in honor of noted visitors; 
to hold series of special meetings; to plan suppers and 
festivals, whenever it is necessary to raise money. 
The creed of this organization is: 

‘Use every opportunity to bring in new members. 

‘‘Remember the name of every new church member. 

‘‘Visit useless members and encourage them for their 
own sake to become useful. 

‘‘Visit persons when desired by the pastors. 

‘Speak cheerfully to each person present on every 
occasion. 

‘Regard every patron of your suppers or entertain- 
ments, and every visitor to your religious meetings, as 
a guest calling on you in your own house. 

‘‘Accept contributions and subscriptions for the 
various Christian enterprises. 

‘Bring in every suggestion that you hear which is 
valuable, new or effective in Christian work elsewhere. 

‘“‘Never allow a meeting to pass without your doing 
some practical thing for the advancement of Christ’s 
kingdom. 


216 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


‘Make yourself and your society of some certain use 
to some person or cause each week.” 

The Ladies’ Aid Society assists in the prayer meetings; 
in refurnishing and improving the church property; in 
celebrating anniversaries; in missionary enterprises; in 
securing the insertion of tablets in The Temple walls; 
in supporting the local missions connected with the 
church; in calling socially on church members or mem- 
bers of the congregation; in evangelistic meetings; in 
household prayer meetings; in supporting reading 
rooms; in comforting those in special affliction; in 
visiting the sick; in aiding the needy, and in clothing 
the poor. 

The society also aids in paying the church debts; 
in looking after the domestic wants of The Temple; in 
sewing for the hospitals, the missions, the Baptist 
Home, the Orphanage, the church fairs, missionary 
workers, and the poor; and in managing the church 
suppers and receptions connected with the ordinations, 
conventions, and other religious gatherings together 
with other activities of a similar nature. 

The men of the church through their organizations 
plan and execute various projects for raising money. 
They also take a deep personal interest in each other’s 
welfare, as is shown by the following incident, pub- 
lished in the Philadelphia Press: 

‘‘At one time a member of Grace Baptist Church 
became involved in financial difficulties in a very 
peculiar way. Previous to connecting himself with 
the church, he had been engaged in a business which 
he felt he could not conscientiously continue after his 
conversion. He therefore sold his interest and engaged 
in mercantile pursuits with which he was unfamiliar. 
As a result he became involved and his establishment 
was in danger of falling into the sheriff’s hands. 


HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 217 


“The situation became known to some members of 
the Business Men’s Union of the church and a com- 
mittee was appointed to look into his affairs. His 
books were found to be straight and his stock to be 
valuable. The members immediately subscribed the 
thousands of dollars necessary to relieve him of all 
embarrassment, and the man was saved.”’ 

The young women of the church, in whatever way 
they may be associated, work to secure new members; 
attend the meetings; propose new work; assist the 
prayer meeting; volunteer for social meetings; aid in 
the entertainments; originate plans for Christian 
benevolent work; welcome young women to the church; 
visit the sick members of the parish; seek and encour- 
age inquirers; hold household devotional meetings; 
sustain missionary work for young women; make 
the church home cheerful and happy; arrange home 
gatherings for various charitable or church enterprises; 
solicit books or periodicals for the reading rooms or 
circulating library. 

The young women of The Temple also co-operate to 
secure employment for the needy; treat all visitors to 
the rooms as special personal guests; undertake for 
the church and Christ large things that may be sug- 
gested by new conditions and needs; instruct in the 
domestic arts, dressmaking, millinery, cooking, decora- 
tions, and—through the Samaritan Hospital—aid in 
the art of nursing. They also furnish instructive 
entertainments for the young; develop the various 
singing services; specially care for and assist young 
sister members; co-operate in sewing enterprises of all 
sorts; aid the pastors by systematic visitations; 
increase the scope of city missions especially by develop- 
ing women as workers therein; maintain suitable 
young women as missionaries at home or in foreign 


218 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


fields, and carry sunshine to darkened hearts and 
homes. There is a wide field of work for their activi- 
ties and they endeavor to fill it conscientiously. 

The work of the young men of The Temple follows 
similar lines. In addition, they help to increase the 
membership and efficiency of the Young Men’s Bible 
Classes and other organizations; watch closely the 
meetings of these associations and keep them under 
the control of able, consecrated-managers and officers; 
make and keep the reading room attractive and help- 
ful; sustain the Sunday morning prayer meeting; 
invite passersby to enter the church, and welcome the 
strangers who do enter; advise seekers after God; 
bring back the wanderers; organize relief committees 
to save lost young men of the city; look after traveling 
business men at hotels and bring them to The Temple. 

The young men of the church also promote temper- 
ance, purity, fraternity and spiritual life; initiate the 
most important undertakings of the church; surround 
themselves with strong young men, and inaugurate 
vigorous fresh plans and methods for bringing the 
Gospel to the young men in store, shop, office, school, 
college, on the streets and elsewhere. ‘They visit sick 
members and help the unsuccessful into lucrative 
employment; organize religious meetings and make 
the church life of the young bright, inspiring and noble; 
plan for sociables, entertainments, for closer acquaint- 
ance and for raising money for Christian work. And 
they also use their pens for Christ among young men 
whom they know, and also among strangers. 

Both the young men and young women working as 
separate organizations or combining, as they frequently 
do, are among the most vital of the factors in the 
Temple’s successful work. 

The Ushers’ Association is one of the strongest and 


HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 219 


most helpful organizations in furthering the church 
work. The ushers are united in a businesslike associa- 
tion for mutual pleasure and good fellowship, and also 
to better conduct their work and the church interests 
they have in hand. They are under the leadership of a 
chief usher, who is president of the association. The 
spirit of hospitality that prevades The Temple finds its 
happiest expression in the courteous welcome and ready 
attention accorded to visitors by the ushers. 

All members of the church who are willing to give up 
their seats to strangers on special occasions send their 
names to the chief usher. And it is no unusual thing 
to see a member cheerfully relinquish his seat, after a 
whispered consultation with an usher, in favor of some 
stranger who is standing. 

One of the important ways in which the church work 
is extended is through its annual fair. Nowadays, 
church fairs are considered old-fashioned and out of 
date by many; but they are not so regarded at The 
Temple. To the members of Grace Baptist Church, a 
church fair has a special spiritual significance and is 
looked upon by them as one of the most useful means 
of furthering the spiritual life and work of the church. 

“The true object of a church fair should be to 
strengthen the church, to propagate the Gospel, and 
to bring the world nearer its God,” said Doctor Con- 
well. ‘‘When you can get a man or woman who is 
not especially interested in religion to give something 
to a church fair, his interest will follow that gift. There- 
fore, raising money for church work or obtaining dona- 
tions for a church fair is evangelical, if done in the right 
spirit. Some of the best workers in our various organ- 
izations have been men and women who were non- 
church givers, when we approached them, but became 
interested by giving. A man who became one of the 


220 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


trustees and faithfully served us for ten years was not 
in the least interested in church work when we first 
went to him for a gift for a fair. In fact, he rather 
emphatically expressed an opinion not at all favorable 
to church work and religion generally; but his preju- 
dice was overcome to the extent that he gave a second- 
hand safe that was soid for a good sum. A letter of 
thanks was sent to him and then one of the members 
called upon him and told him how much his gift had 
helped the committee that received it. The man 
became interested, finally discovered that religion and 
ehurch work were somewhat different from what he 
thought, and was—as I have said—one of our trustees 
for a decade. 

“T could multiply such instances many times. <A 
man who never went to church was interested in the 
same way and later became a trustee of one of our 
hospitals. Raising money—whether through the fair 
or otherwise—has built up our church; but it must be 
done in the right spirit. The true mission of the church 
must be held ever in view. The money raised is merely 
the ‘sign following.’”’ 

With Conwell, however, practical methods went 
hand in hand with spiritual motives. The fairs of The 
Temple are carefully planned. The membership, of 
course, know that a fair is to be held; but before any 
definite information of the coming fair is given them 
a strong foundation of careful and systematic prepara- 
tion is laid. Doctor Conwell and certain officials of 
the church decided on the executive committee and 
called it together. Officers were elected, Doctor Con- 
well always being appointed president. 

The whole church membership was then carefully 
studied, and every member put to work upon some com- 
mittee, a chairman for the committee being appointed 


HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 221 


at the same time. A notice of their appointment, the 
list of their fellow-workers, and a letter from the pastor 
relative to the fair were sent to each. The chief purpose 
of the fair—that of saving souls—-was ever kept in view. 
The pastor in his letter to each member always laid 
special stress on it. In one such letter he said: 

“The religious purpose is to consolidate our church 
by a more extensive and intimate acquaintance with 
each other and to enlarge the circle of social influence 
over those who have not accepted Christ. 

‘This enterprise being undertaken for the service of 
Christ, each church member is urged to enter into it 
with earnest prayer, and to use every opportunity to 
direct the attention of workers and visitors toward 
spiritual things. 

‘Each committee should have its prayer circle or a 
special season set apart for devotional services. This 
enterprise being undertaken for the spiritual good of the 
church, intimate friends and those who have hitherto 
worked together are especially requested to separate on 
this occasion and work with new members, forming a 
new circle of acquaintances. 

‘“Do not seek for a different place unless it is clear 
that you can do much more in another position, for they 
honor God most who take up His work right where they 
are and do faithfully the duty nearest them. 

“Your pastor prays earnestly that this season of 
work, offering, and pleasure may be used by the Lord 
to help humanity and add to the glory of His Kingdom 
on earth.” 

This is the tenor of the letters sent each year, and 
this purpose is held ever before the workers. Hach 
committee is urged to meet as soon as possible and, asa 
rule, the chairman calls a meeting within a week after 
the receipt of the list. Each committee upon meeting 


222 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


elects a president, a vice-president, secretary and treas- 
urer, which, together with the original executive com- 
mittee, form the executive committee of the fair. 

Until the opening of the fair these various com- 
mittees work to secure contributions or whatever may 
be needed for the special work they have been appointed 
todo. If they need costumes or expensive decorations 
for the booths, they give entertainments to raise the 
money; all depending upon the character of the fair 
in general. Sometimes it is a fair in the accepted sense 
of the word—an occasion devoted to the selling of such 
goods as interested friends and well-wishers have con- 
tributed. In other instances, it has a special signifi- 
cance. At one fair, each committee represented a 
country; the members dressed in the costumes of its 
people; and the booth was typical of a home or some 
special building. Such products of the country as could 
be obtained were among the articles sold or exhibited. 

Every committee meeting is opened with a prayer; 
and each night during the fair a prayer meeting is held. 
In addition, a committee is appointed to look after the 
throng of strangers visiting the fair and, whenever 
possible, to get them to register in a book kept specially 
for that purpose at the entrance. ‘To all those who 
sign the register, a New Year’s greeting is sent, as a 
little token of the church’s appreciation of their help. 

Much of the great tide of membership that flows into 
the church comes through the doors of these church 
fairs, which are really revival seasons. They are prac- 
tical illustrations of how a working church prays and 
a praying church works. Then Christianity has on its 
working clothes; but it is Christianity none the less— 
outspoken in its faith; fearless in its testimony; and 
full of the love that desires to help every man and 
woman to a higher and happier life, 


HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 223 


The church entertainments also form another impor- 
tant feature of church life. Indeed, from the first of 
September until summer is well advanced, few weekday 
nights pass without some religious service or entertain- 
ment taking place in The Temple. In the height of the 
season, it is no uncommon thing for two or three of 
such entertainments to be given in various halls of The 
Temple during the same evening. 

In regard to church fairs and entertainments, Doctor 
Conwell said in a sermon: ‘‘The Lord pity any church 
that has not enough of the spirit of Christ in it to stand 
a church fair, wherein devout offerings are brought to 
the tithing house in the spirit of true devotion. The 
Lord pity any church that has not enough of the spirit 
of Jesus in it to endure or enjoy a pure entertainment. 
Indeed, they are subjects for prayer if they cannot— 
without quarrels, without fightings, without defeat to 
the cause of Christ—engage in the pure and innocent 
things that God offers to His children.” And in 
an address on “The Institutional Church,” he 
says: 

‘The institutional church of the future will have the 
best regular lecture courses of the highest order. There 
will be about them sufficient entertainment to hold the 
audience while, at the same time, they will give positive 
instruction and spiritual elevation. Every Church of 
Christ is so sacred that it ought to have within its walls 
everything that helps to save souls. If an entertain- 
ment is put into a church for any secular purpose— 
simply to make money—that church will be divided; 
it will be enmeshed in quarrels, and souls will not be 
saved there. There must be a higher end. As between 
the church and the world we must use everything that 
will save and reject everything that will injure. This 


f 


224 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


“You must keep in mind the question, ‘Will Jesus 
come here and save souls?’ You must carefully 
eliminate all that will show irreverence for holy things 
or disrespect for the church. You must carefully 
introduce, wherever you can, the direct teachings of the 
Gospel, and then your entertainments will be the power 
of God unto salvation. The entertainments of the 
church need to be carefully guarded; and, if they are, 
the church of the future will control the entertainments 
of the world. Then the theater that has its display of 
low and vulgar amusement will not pay because the 
churches will hold the best classes and, for divine and 
humane purposes, will conduct the best entertainments. 
There will be double inducement that will draw all 
classes, and the institutional church of the future will 
be free to use any reasonable means to influence men 
for good.” 

The Baptist Temple—as can be seen—believes in 
good, pure and elevating amusements; but every 
entertainment to be given is carefully considered. In 
such a vast body of workers—many of them young and 
inexperienced—this consideration is necessary. By 
a vote of the church, every program to be used in any 
entertainment in The Temple must first be submitted 
to the Board of Deacons; and what this Board dis- 
approves cannot be presented to the congregation of 
Grace Church under any circumstances. 

The concerts and oratories of the chorus are of the 
very highest order and attract music lovers from all 
parts of the city and nearby towns. The other enter- 
tainments in the course of a year cover such a variety 
of subjects that every person is sure to find something 
to his iking. The lecturers have included some of the 
most prominent men and women of the country, among 
them being ex-Presidents of the United States, Govern- 


HOW THE TEMPLE WORKS 225 


ors of states, ex-members of Presidential Cabinets, and 
leading educators and writers. No matter what the 
entertainment is, however, the true mission of the 
church is never forgotten—that mission which its pastor 
so earnestly often says is “not to entertain people. 
The church’s only thought should be to turn the hearts 
of men to God.” 

‘“‘We are often criticised as a church,” said Doctor 
Conwell in an address, ‘‘by persons who do not under- 
stand the purposes or spirit of our work. They say, 
‘You have a great many entertainments and socials, 
and the church is in danger of going over to the world.’ 
Ah, yes; the old hermits went away and hid themselves 
in the rocks and caves and lived on the scantiest food 
and ‘Kept away from the world.’ They were separate 
from the world. They were in no danger of ‘going 
over to the world.’ They had hidden themselves far 
away from men. And so it is in some churches where 
—through coldness and forgetfulness of Christ’s purpose, 
of Christ’s sacrifice, and the purpose for which the 
church was instituted—they withdraw themselves so 
far from the world that they cannot save a drowning 
man when he is in sight; they cannot reach down to 
him because the distance is too great and the life line 
is too short. 

‘“Where are the unchurched masses of Philadelphia 
today? Why are they not in the churches at this hour? 
Because the church is so far away. The difference 
that is found between the church which saves and that 
which does not is found in the fact that the latter 
holds to the Pharisaical profession that the church must 
keep itself aloof from the people—yes, from the drown- 
ing thousands who are going down to everlasting ruin, 
to be forever lost. The danger is not now so much in 
going over to the world as in going away from it— 


226 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORE 


away from the world which Jesus died to save—the 
world which the church should lead to Him.” 

To keep members and friends in touch with the many 
lines of activity in which the Baptist Temple works, a 
magazine—the Temple Review—is published. It isa 
private business enterprise, but it chronicles church 
work, and published Doctor Conwell’s sermons each 
week. Many people living at a distance who cannot 
come often to the Temple found the magazine most 
enjoyable and helpful; thus obtained their pastor’s 
sermons and looked through its printed. pages into the 
busy life of the church itself. The publication also 
helps members in one branch of the church work to 
keep in touch with what members in other branches 
are doing. ‘The work of the hospitals and university 
from week to week is also recorded, so that the journal 
is a very good mirror of the many activities of the 
Grace Baptist Church membership. 

Thus, in good fellowship, the church works unitedly 
to further Christ’s kingdom. The Temple is a tre- 
mendous force for good in the life of Philadelphia 
and each member feels a keen joy in being a part of 
the church, and in knowing that he can help in the 
great work that it is doing. The little band of mem- 
bers in the early days builded better than they knew, 
when they struggled so valiantly to preserve the life 
of Grace Baptist Church and called the almost 
unknown pastor of a little church in Lexington to help 
them. 





PROFESSOR DAVID D. WOOD 


Famous OrGANIst—First LEADER OF THE TEMPLE CHORUS 





CHAPTER XXIII 
Tue Business MANAGEMENT 


Doctor Conwell Tells How the Business Affairs of 
The Temple are Conducted. The System of Handling 
the Church Finances. 


Doctor Conwell. The business affairs of 

Grace Baptist Church are plain facts and 

big ones. There is no evading them. The 
membership numbers about three thousand. A con- 
stant stream of money is pouring in, and as quickly 
going out for expenses and charitable purposes. It 
must all be looked after. A record of the membership 
must be kept; changes of address made; and the 
members themselves kept in touch with. It all means 
work of a practical, business nature; and to get the 
best results from least expenditure of time and money, 
it must all be done in a most efficient manner. Doctor 
Conwell, in speaking of the way in which the business 
affairs of the Temple are conducted, says: 

‘‘What has contributed most as the means used of 
God to bring Grace Church up to its efficiency? It 
was the inspired, sanctified, common sense of enter- 
prising, careful business men. ‘The disciplined judg- 
ment; the knowledge of men; and the forethought and 
skill of those workers who were educated in the school 
of practical business life helped most. The trustees 
and working committees in all our undertakings— 
whether for church, hospital, university or missions— 
have been, providentially, men of thorough business 

15 (227) 


é ol es plain facts of life must be recognized,”’ says 


228 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


training who used their experience and skill for the 
church with even greater care and perseverance than 
they would have done in their own affairs. 

“When they wanted lumber they knew where to 
purchase it and how to obtain discounts. When they 
needed money they knew where the money was and 
what securities were good in the market. They saved 
by discounting their own bills, and kindly insisted that 
contractors and laborers should earn fairly the money 
they received. They foresaw the financial needs and 
always insisted on securing the money in time to meet 
demands. 

‘‘Some men make religion so dreamy, so unreal, so 
unnatural, that the more they believe in it the less 
practical they become. They expect ravens to feed 
them; the cruse of oil to be inexhaustible; and the 
fish to come to the right side of the ship at breakfast 
time. They trust in God and loaf around. They 
would cénduct mundane affairs as though men were 
angels and church business a series of miracles. But 
the successful church worker is one who recognizes 
the plain facts of life, and their relation to heavenly 
things; who is neither profane nor crazy; who feels 
that his experience and judgment are gifts of God to 
be used; but who also fully realizes that—after all— 
unless God lives in the house, they labor in vain who 
build it. 

“None of our successful managers have been flowery 
orators; nor have they been in the habit of wearying 
man and the Lord with long prayers. If they speak 
they are earnest and conservative. ‘They are men 
whom the banks would trust; whose recommendations 
are valuable; and who know a counterfeit dollar or a 
worthless endorsement. ‘They read men at a glance, 
being trained in actual experience with all classes. 


THE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 229 


They have been the pillars of the church. While 
others have been praying with religious phraseology 
that the stray sheep might be sent home, these men 
have gone after him and brought him back. They have 
faithfully done their part, and God has answered their 
earnest prayers for the rest.” 

One of the associate pastors of The Temple, in speak- 
ing of the business management of the affairs of the 
church, said: ‘‘ Many persons imagine that the financial 
organization of Grace Baptist Church must be some- 
thing out of the ordinary, because the results have 
been so unusual. There is nothing peculiar in the 
general plan of financial procedure, but great pains 
are taken to work the plan for all it is worth. Special 
pains have been taken to secure consecrated and 
competent men for the Board of Trustees. And the 
trustees do this one thing, a rule of the church per- 
mitting a man to hold but one elective office. Com- 
petent financiers—consecrated to this work and doing 
it as carefully as they would do their own business—is 
the statement that tells the whole story.’ 

All of these business matters are in the hands of 
the deacons and trustees; the deacons—if any dis- 
tinction in the work can be made—look after the 
membership, and the Board of Trustees attend to the 
financial matters. After a person has signified his 
intention to join the church, he meets the deacons who 
explain to him the system by which members con- 
tribute to the support of the church. If he desires to 
contribute by taking a sitting, he is assigned a seat; 
or if he lives at a distance or cannot come regularly, he 
may only pay the dues—one dollar and twenty cents 
a year for those under eighteen years of age and three 
dollars for those over that age. 

For the collection of the money from sittings, and 


230 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


whatever in addition members may wish to give to 
the charitable work of the church, envelopes are dis- 
tributed the first of the year among the members. 
Each member is given a packet of fifty-two small 
envelopes. These envelopes are divided into two 
sections. In one section is placed the weekly offering 
for the church work—for the upkeep of the church, as 
it were; and in the other section is placed whatever is 
contributed to general benevolence and missions. The 
latter amount is used for the charitable work of the 
church and the missionary work of the denomination, 
on a percentage basis arranged by the church author- 
ities. For instance, the deacons at present receive 
ten per cent of this amount for the work of the church 
among their own poor. ‘The various missions and 
other work of the denomination receive five per cent, 
ten per cent, and twenty per cent, according to the 
size and need of the organization to which it is given. 
This eliminates all special collections for missions, 
homes and the various societies for which, in the past, 
special collections were taken on special days. 

The money which pours into the business office of 
the church is taken in charge by the Finance Committee 
of the Board of Trustees and duly recorded by the 
financial secretary. All payments are entered on 
cards or in books and, at a moment’s notice, a member 
can ascertain just what he has paid or how much he 
owes on the year’s account. 

This income is deposited to the order of the church 
treasurer, who is then at liberty to draw against it as 
directed by the Board of Trustees and properly certi- 
fied by the chairman and secretary. The business 
office is kept open during the entire week with the 
exception of two afternoons and evenings. The sum 
raised by Grace Baptist Church during Doctor Con- 


THE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 231 


well’s pastorate, and paid out for running expenses, 
missions, charitable work, Temple University, the 
Samaritan, Greatheart and Garretson hospitals runs 
high into the millions. 

The Pew Committee, which is composed of three 
members of the Board of Trustees, attends to the 
rental of the many sittings in The Temple. A large 
number of the regular attendants at the services are 
not members of the church. ‘They enjoy the services 
and rent sittings that they may be sure of a seat when 
they attend. 

The third committee drawn from the Board of 
Trustees is the House Committtee of three members. 

This committee has charge of The Temple building; 
sees to its being kept in order; arranges for all regular 
and special meetings; superintends the heating and 
lighting; decides all questions regarding use of the 
structure for any purpose, or for the use of a part of 
it for special purposes; manages the great crowds that 
so often throng the building; has charge of the doors 
during entertainments; in short, makes the most and 
the best of the great building under its care. Six 
persons are constantly employed in taking care of The 
Temple, and often there is necessity for securing extra 
help for the caretakers of this church whose doors are 
never shut. . 

The deacons, as always, attend to the welfare of the 
membership. On Communion Sundays, cards are 
issued to the members upon which they may sign their 
names. ‘These cards the deacons collect and by them 
record the number of members present and those 
absent. If a member is absent three successive Sun- 
days, the deacons call on him, if he lives in the city, 
to ascertain the cause of his absence. If he resides in 
some neighboring town, they send a kindly letter to 


232 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


know if it is not possible for him to attend some of the 
Communion services. In person or by letter they 
keep a loving watch over the vast membership, so that 
every member feels that even though he may not 
attend often, he is not forgotten. 

Thus the business of Grace Baptist Church is 
managed prayerfully but practically. If some part of 
the machinery seems cumbersome, it is taken in hand 
by shrewd and experienced minds to see how it can be 
improved. What may seem a good method today, a 
year from now may be deemed a waste of time and 
energy, and cast aside for the new and improved sys- 
tem that has taken its place in the world of every-day 
work. The church keeps abreast with the times in its 
business methods as well as in its spiritual work, 
because it knows that otherwise it cannot continue 
to grow. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
Tue Music or THe TEMPLE 


The Chorus of The Temple, and Its Organization 
and First Leader, Professor David D. Wood, 
Professor Wood’s Views on Choir Organization and 
Work. The Business Management of The Temple 
Chorus. The Special Organ. 


' X YITH a pastor who had loved music from 

childhood—who taught it in his early man- 

hood, and who was himself proficient on 

several instruments—music naturally has 

assumed an important place in Temple life and work. 

From the moment of his entering upon the pastorate 

of Grace Baptist Church, Doctor Conwell made the 
music a feature of the services. 

During the early work of organizing and developing 
a church choir, he found an able and loyal leader in the 
late Professor David D. Wood, who threw himself 
heart and soul into helping the church to grow music- 
ally. He was to the musical life of the church what 
Doctor Conwell has been to its spiritual growth; and, 
next to their pastor himself, it is doubtful if any man 
was so endeared to the Grace Church membership as 
was Professor Wood, their blind organist. 

He came to them in May, 1885, the regular organist 
being sick. His connection with the church was 
formed in the most simple manner and yet it was 
invaluable to the work of The Temple. His son was 
an attendant at the church and, when the regular 
organist fell ill, asked his father if he would not take 

(233) 


234 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


his place. Ever ready to do a kindness, Professor 
Wood consented. The regular organist never suffi- 
ciently recovered to return to his post, being compelled 
to go west finally for his health. Doctor Conwell 
asked Professor Wood to accept the position and, from 
that day until within a short time of his death, he 
faithfully and delightfully served the church as 
organist. 

During his life Professor Wood was one of the most 
widely known organists of the country, being acknowl- 
edged everywhere as a master of the instrument. He 
was a member of the faculty of the Philadelphia 
Musical Academy and principal of the music depart- 
ment in the Pennsylvania School for the Blind. He is 
said to have trained more good organists than any 
other teacher in Philadelphia. 

In the old church at Mervine and Berks Streets he 
directed a volunteer choir of about twenty persons— 
all that the little organ loft could accommodate. The 
members of this choir could sing as the birds sing, 
because they had good voices and loved music: but 
of musical training or education they had little. They 
were drawn from the membership of the church which 
was composed of poor working people. 

From this nucleus grew the chorus of The Temple, 
which was organized in 1891, six weeks before the 
membership took possession of its new building. 
With the organization of this large chorus, Professor 
Wood faced a new and difficult problem. How was he 
to hold from one hundred to one hundred and fifty 
people together, who were not paid for their services 
and who were not people of leisure to whom rehearsals 
are no tax on time or strength? ‘These were nearly all 
working people who came to rehearsal after a day’s 
tiring employment, ‘That he succeeded so splendidly 


THE MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE 235 


in the fourteen years in which he worked with them 
proved his fine leadership. 

Professor Wood had a body of workers devoted to 
the church—people before whom was ever held the 
fact that they could serve the Master they all loved by 
singing, if they could in no other way; that they 
could give their voices, if they could give nothing else. 
He had a body of workers devoted also to himself, 
who would have obeyed him unhesitatingly, no matter 
what commands he might have given them. But he 
felt they should have some other encouragement— 
some other interest to hold them together; so, almost 
immediately upon their organization he took up the 
study of Haydn’s “Creation.” 

It seemed a stupendous undertaking for a young 
and inexperienced chorus—one with no trained voices, 
and few of whom could even read music at sight. But 
they plunged into the study with spirit. No incentive 
was needed to come to rehearsals; no one thought of 
dropping out. Indeed, the opportunity to study such 
music under such a master brought many new members. 
And in the fall of that year the oratorio was given with 
splendid success. 

This method was followed through the years that 
ensued. Every year some special work was taken up 
for study and rendered in the fall. It was an event 
that became a recognized feature of the city’s musical 
life, eagerly awaited by music lovers not only of 
Philadelphia but of nearby towns. In addition to 
Haydn’s “Creation,’’ which was sung four times, the 
chorus has rendered Handel’s ‘“‘Messiah”’ three times, 
Mendelssohn’s ‘‘Elijah” twice, Beethoven’s ‘‘ Mount 
of Olives,’ Mendelssohn’s ‘‘Hymn of Praise,” and 
Miriam’s ‘“‘Song of Triumph.” It has also given a 
number of secular concerts. For this extra work, 


236 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


neither Professor Wood nor any member of the chorus 
ever received one cent of pay. It was all cheerfully 
contributed. The oratorios were given with a full 
orchestra and eminent soloists. 

In the secular concerts the music was always of the 
highest order. Guilmant, the celebrated French 
organist, gave a recital at The Temple while in this 
country. ‘The chorus believes in the best, both in the 
class of music it renders and the talent it secures, and 
has long been looked on by those interested in the 
city’s musical welfare as a society that encourages and 
supports all that is high and fine in music. Among 
the selections given at the Sunday services are Gounod’s 
“Sanctus,” the magnificent ‘“Pilgrim’s Chorus,” the 
“Gloria,” from Mozart’s ‘‘Twelfth Mass,’’ Handel’s 
beautiful “Largo,” the “St. Cecilia Mass,’”’ and others 
of the same character. 

The plan of fining members for absence from rehear- 
sal, which was adopted at the time the chorus was 
organized, had also much to do with its success, though 
it was rather unusual for a choir. Instead of being 
paid to sing, they paid if they did not sing. The fine 
at first was twenty-five cents for each failure to attend 
rehearsal or Sunday service. Many shook their 
heads and said it was a bad idea; that the members 
wouldn’t come and couldn’t pay the fine; and that the 
chorus would go to pieces. But the members did 
come and, when for any reason they were compelled 
to stay away, they cheerfully paid the fine, and the 
chorus flourished. These fines helped to pay the 
current expenses of the chorus. Later the amount was 
reduced and finally the practice was discontinued. 

Speaking of the organization and work of such a 
chorus, Professor Wood said: ‘‘In organizing a church 
chorus, one must not be too particular about the 


THE MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE 237 


previous musical education of applicants. It is not 
necessary that they be musicians, or even that they read 
music readily. All that I insist upon is a fairly good 
voice and a correct ear. I assume, of course, that all 
comers desire to learn to sing. Rehearsals must be 
scrupulously maintained, beginning promptly, con- 
tinuing with spirit, and not interrupted by disorder of 
any kind. 

‘A rehearsal should never exceed two hours; and a 
half hour less is plenty long enough, if there is no waste 
of time. In learning new music, voices should be 
rehearsed separately; that is, all sopranos, tenors, 
basses and altos by themselves first; then combine the 
voices. You should place before a choir a variety of 
music sufficient to arouse the interest of all concerned. 
This will include much beyond direct demand for church 
work. The chorus of The Temple has learned and sung 
on appropriate occasions war songs, college songs, 
patriotic songs and other grades of popular music. 

‘No one man’s taste should rule in regard to these 
questions as to variety, although the proprieties of 
every occasion should be carefully preserved. Due 
regard must be paid to the taste of members of the 
chorus. If any of them express a wish for a particular 
piece, I let them have it and, when my time comes to 
select, they are with me. Keep some high attainment 
before the singers all the time. When the easier 
tasks are mastered, attempt something more difficult. 
It maintains enthusiasm to be ever after something 
better, and enthusiasm is a power everywhere. In 
music, this is ‘the spirit which quickeneth.’ 

‘“In the preparation of chorus work do not insist 
on perfection. When I get them to sing fairly well, I 
am satisfied. To insist on extreme accuracy will 
discourage singers. Do not, therefore, overtrain them, 


238 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


An incredible amount may be done even by a crude 
company of singers. When the preparation began for 
the opening of The Temple, there was but a handful of 
volunteers and time for but five rehearsals. But 
enthusiasm rose, reinforcements came, and six anthems, 
including the ‘Hallelujah Chorus,’ were prepared and 
sung In a praiseworthy manner. Do not fear to 
attempt great things. Timidity ruins many a chorus. 

“Do not be afraid to praise your singers. Give 
praise, and plenty of it, whenever and wherever it is 
due. A domineering spirit will prove disastrous. 
Severity and ridicule will kill them. Correct faults 
faithfully and promptly, but kindly. In the matter 
of discipline I am a strong advocate of the ‘fine system.’ 
It is the only way to keep a chorus together. The 
fines should be regulated according to the financial 
ability of the chorus. ‘This system is far better than 
monthly dues. 

“The advantages of being a member of a chorus are 
many and of great value. Concerted work has advan- 
tages which can be secured in no other way. <A good 
chorus is an unequaled drill in musical time. The 
singer cannot humor himself as the soloist can, but 
must go right on with the grand advance of the com- 
pany. He gets constant help, also, in the accurate - 
reading of music. ‘Then, too, there is an indescribable, 
uplifting, enkindling power in the presence and 
co-operation of others. ‘The volume of song lifts one, 
as when a great congregation sings. It is the esprit 
de corps of the army—that magnetic power which 
comes from the touch of elbows and the consecration 
to a common cause. No soloist gets this. 

‘Some would-be soloists make a great mistake right 
here. They think that chorus work spoils them as 
soloists. Not at all, if they have proper views of 


THE MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE 239 


individual work in a chorus. If they propose to sing 
out so they shall sound forth above all others, then 
they may damage their voices for solo work. But 
that is a needless and highly improper use of the voice. 
Sing along with the others in a natural tone. They 
will be helped and the soloist will not be harmed. 

“The best conservatories of music in the world 
require of their students a large amount of practice in 
concerted performance and will not grant diplomas 
without it. All the great soloists have served their 
time as chorus singers. Parepa-Rosa, when singing in 
the solo parts in oratorio, would habitually sing in the 
chorus parts also, singing from beginning to end with 
the others. 

‘“Many persons have expressed their astonishment 
at the absence of the baton both from the rehearsals 
and public performances of the chorus of The Temple. 
Experience has proven to me, beyond a doubt, that a 
chorus can be better drilled without a baton than with 
it, though it costs more labor and patience to obtain 
the result. ‘To sing by common inspiration is far better 
than to have the music ‘pumped out,’ as is often the 
case, by the uncertain movements of the leader’s 
baton.” 

With a membership that has ranged from one hun- 
dred to two hundred and fifty, skilled business manage- 
ment is needed to keep everything running smoothly 
in the chorus. The record of attendance is regulated 
by the use of checks. Each member is assigned a 
number. As they come to rehearsal, service, or concert, 
the singer removes the check on which is his number, 
from the board upon which it hangs, and gives it to 
the person appointed to receive it, as he passes up the 
stairway to his seat in the choir. When the numbers 
are checked up at the close of the evening, the checks 


240 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


which have not been removed from the board are 
marked “absent.” 

The bill for sheet music for one year has run at times 
to about five hundred dollars. To care for so much music 
would be no light task if it were not reduced to a science. 
The music is in charge of the chorus librarian, who 
gives to each member an envelope stamped with his 
number and containing all the sheet music used by 
the chorus. Each member.is responsible for his music; 
thus the system resolves itself into simplicity itself. 
In the Lower Temple enclosed closets are built into 
the wall and divided into sections, in which the 
envelopes are filed according to number, so that it is 
but the work of a moment to find.the music for any 
singer. An insurance is carried on the music. 

Typical of the spirit of self-sacrifice that animates 
the chorus is the fact that for nearly ten years after 
the choir was organized, one of the members, in order to 
reduce the expense for sheet music, copied on a mimeo- 
graph all the music used by the members. It was a 
gigantic task, but he never faltered while the need 
was felt. 

In order to avoid confusion—both in rehearsals and 
at each service—every singer has an appointed seat. 
There is also a system of signals employed by the 
organist, that are clearly understood and promptly 
responded to by the chorus, for rising, resuming their 
seats, and for any other duty. This regularity of 
movement; the precision with which the great choir 
leads the movements and voices of the congregation 
in all the musical services; and the entire absence of 
confusion, impresses the thoroughness of the chorus 
drill upon every one, and adds greatly to the effective- 
ness and decorum of the service. 

Most remarkable of all the work of the chorus, per- 


THE MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE 241 


haps, is the fact that it has not only paid its way, but 
has also contributed financially to the help of the 
church. The importance of this achievement is 
better understood when it is remembered that most 
choral societies are supported by guarantors, or 
friends or members must make up the deficits that 
occur with unpleasant regularity. 

The chorus has furnished a private room in the 
Samaritan Hospital at a cost of $250; has paid half 
the cost of the telephone service to a shut-in member, 
so that while lying on his bed of sickness he could still 
hear the preaching and singing, and has contributed 
to members in need. In fact, whenever help was 
required, the choir has come forward and shouldered 
its share of the financial burdens of the church. Out 
of the chorus has grown many smaller organizations 
which not only assist from time to time in the church 
and prayer-meeting services, but are in frequent 
demand by lyceums and other churches. All the 
money they earned by these smaller organizations is 
devoted to some part of The Temple work. 

The organ which rears its forest of beautiful pipes 
at the back of the church is one of the finest in the 
country. It was specially built for the Baptist Temple, 
and its voicing is considered marvelous by experts. 

It cost about $16,000; has sixteen sets of pipes, 
five sets of percussion instruments; and the pipes are 
enclosed in chambers as nearly sound-proof as it is 
possible to make them. 

The basis of the organ is a thirty-two foot diaphone. 
This great pipe weighs about a ton and extends from 
the floor of the organ chamber to the roof of The 
Temple. The tibia plena is another special stop 
which gives pure foundation tones. It extends for a 
sixteen-foot octave and has seventy-three pipes. 


242 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Other diapasons are the horn with eighty-five pipes; 
the dolce; the concert flute with ninety-seven pipes; 
and the chimney flute with ninety-five pipes. 

There are two wonderfully voiced sets of string tone 
pipes, each having eighty-five pipes. 

The reed work includes a vox humana of sixty-one 
pipes; a clarionet of seventy-three pipes; an oboe 
horn of seventy-three pipes; an orchestral oboe of 
seventy-three pipes; a cornopean of seventy-three 
pipes; a French trumpet, sixteen feet long, of ninety- 
five pipes; and a wonderful tuba mirabilis of ninety- 
five pipes. 

In the percussion department are cathedral chimes 
of twenty-five gongs; harmonic gongs of thirty-seven 
notes; a xylophone of thirty-seven notes; electric 
bells of twenty-five notes, shimmer bells of twenty-five 
notes; a bass drum; a snare drum, and a triangle. 

The organ is blown by a thirty-horse-power electric 
blower and the wind pressures are thirty-five inches, 
twenty-five inches and ten inches. All the pipes are 
enclosed in swell chambers. ‘The key desk is in front 
of the chorus gallery so that the organist can direct 
the chorus. 

With such a chorus and such an instrument to aid it, 
the music of The Temple is an inspiring, uplifting part 
of the service. Doctor Conwell read the hymns with 
an impressiveness that put new meaning into them. 
The melody pealed forth; the chorus, as one individual, 
rose and a great flood of song filled the vast auditorium. 
As it ebbed and sank into silence, faith was refreshed 
and strengthened, hardened hearts softened, and the 
love of Christ left as a precious legacy with many a 
man and woman there. 


CHAPTER) XXV 
TEMPLE SERVICES 


The Sunday Routine. The Children’s Church. 
The Sunday-school and Sunday Prayer-Meetings. 
Baptismal Services. The Dedication of Infants. 
Special Services. Watch Meeting. 


busy one. It is crowded with work and it is 
good to be there. Services begin at 9.30 with 
a prayer-meeting in the Lower Temple. This 
Service is lead by some member of the association 
which has the meeting in charge. A different leader 
is appointed for each Sunday and a Special topic is 
considered. The subjects for discussion cover a period 
of three months and at one time, together with the 
names of the leaders, were printed on little folders. 
These folders were distributed among the members, 
so that each was informed as to who would conduct 
the services and what the subject would be. The 
pastors of the church are present; but the appointed 
leader has full charge of the meeting. For twenty-one 
years Doctor Conwell, without a single break, appeared 
at the door of the prayer-meeting room exactly on the 
minute of nine-thirty. But of late years he was often 
constrained to be away because of his lecture trips. 
Following the prayer-meeting in the Lower Temple 
the regular church service begins at 10.30 in the 
auditorium. At the close of the service, Doctor Con- 
well descended from the pulpit and met strangers and 
friends with a hearty handclasp and a cordial word of 
greeting. 
16 (243) 


See is a joyous day at The Temple, and a 


244 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


While morning service is being conducted in The 
Temple, a Young People’s Church is being held in the 
Lower Temple. Doctor Conwell had not forgotten those 
wearisome Sundays of his boyhood, when, too young 
to appreciate the church service, he fidgeted, strove to 
keep awake, whittled, and ended it all by thoroughly 
disliking church. He wanted no such unhappy young- 
sters to sit through his preaching; no such dislike of 
the church embedded in childish hearts and minds. 

“Tf the church service cannot be adapted to the 
children,’”’ Doctor Conwell said, ‘‘they must have a 
service of their own, that is so adapted; otherwise they 
will be driven away.”’ So he planned a Young People’s 
Church. Boys and girls averaging from three to four- 
teen years attend it; and Sunday morning the streets 
in the neighborhood of The Temple are thronged 
with happy-faced children on the way to their own 
church, the youngest often in the care of parents who 
are later to enjoy more fully The Temple services, 
since they are not compelled to keep a watchful eye 
on a restless child. 

The Children’s Church is one of the very successful 
features of the work of The Temple, and it has been 
copied by many other churches who find it equally 
valuable. The children are divided into what might 
be called two departments—the Junior, which includes 
children over ten years of age, and the Kindergarten, 
composed of individual classes averaging from six to 
ten pupils, in which are children under ten years. 
Each of these classes is in charge of a skilled kinder- 
gartner. A very pretty graduation service was held on 
Doctor Conwell’s birthday for those old enough to pass 
from a kindergarten class into the Junior Department. 

Particular attention is paid to the selection of 
teachers for these young church-goers. Not only must 


TEMPLE SERVICES 245 


these teachers be bright, attractive and of good char- 
acter, lovers of children and the kind whom children 
instinctively love; but they must be trained, experi- 
enced kindergartners thoroughly familiar with modern 
methods of teaching. 

The Kindergarten Department opens with the 
doxology, followed by a hymn and the collection. <A 
short story—Biblical in character—is told from the 
platform, and then each teacher takes this story and 
elaborates it. For instance, if the life of Joseph is 
under consideration, some part of it will be told each 
Sunday from the platform, followed by individual 
instruction by each teacher. Frequently there are 
models in sand or clay to help illustrate the platform 
talk. 

The Junior Department, since it is intended to fill 
the gap between the small children and the older 
people upstairs, is a little more advanced in its methods. 
It has its own ushers and takes up its own collection 
and attendance records. Those in charge are appointed 
much after the manner of regular church procedure. 

The service opens with the doxology, followed by a 
prayer and hymn and the reciting of a verse assigned 
previously in a special way. That is, the children will 
be told to bring a verse from some special chapter, or 
a verse beginning with some letter of the alphabet. 
The recitation of this verse is quite a feature of the 
exercises. Rarely does a boy or girl fail to respond. 
A sermon follows based on some verse in the Bible. 

Both sessions come to an end at a given time, and 
then moving pictures are shown. ‘These motion 
pictures are on religious subjects, or are moral stories, 
animal stories, or child stories in which a worthy or 
notable hero or heroine is featured. Or the scenes 
may be travel pictures of the countries to which the 


246 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


church sends missionaries, showing the conditions there 
which the missionaries have to overcome. As the 
pictures are thrown on the screen, some one qualified 
gives a talk, pointing out what is desired the children 
should learn from the exhibition. The machine is 
thoroughly modern in every respect—the kind that is 
used in seventy-five per cent of the moving picture 
houses of the city—and a daylight screen is used. 

The children do more, however, than merely attend 
these attractive services. The spirit of work which 
permeates the various organizations of The Temple is 
felt here. Every year, the children give one or two 
entertainments. They have a booth at the fair, and 
they give annually a New England dinner. For the 
dinner, the mothers of the children co-operate with 
the teachers. The work not only furthers the growth 
of the church, but helps to defray expenses of the 
roganization; for the cost of running the Children’s 
Church is no small item. 

When a child becomes a member of the Children’s 
Church, his name and address are registered on a card 
together with the date of his birth. He is then given 
a card to take home to be filled out with the names of 
his father and mother, grandfather, grandmother, and 
brothers and sisters, if he has them, together with the 
birthday of each. As the birthday of the various 
members of the family came around, a birthday card 
was sent each, signed by Doctor Conwell and the secre- 
tary and superintendent of the Children’s Church. 
When any member of the family of any of these church 
members is sick, a flower or book is sent. On Easter 
a plant is sent to each child. 

Thus the expenses of the Children’s Church are no 
light matter. But the church pays its own way, and 
one year had nearly three hundred dollars surplus to 
turn into the treasury of the church proper. 


TEMPLE SERVICES 247 


An organization that grew out of the Children’s 
Church was the Young People’s Vesper Service. It 
was for the young people who are neither children nor 
grown-ups. “It is to the church services what the 
‘Children’s Hour’ is to the day,” said the young man 
who organized it. It was held every Sunday evening 
from seven to seven-thirty. The young people them- 
selves had charge of it, different ones taking turns in 
leading. One of them presided at the piano, and a 
feature of the service consisted In the bringing in of 
verses after the manner in the Children’s Church. 

As the young people grow older and desire to attend 
the regular church services in the auditorium above, 
they do so. Sometimes a few of them, or a class, will 
attend some special service. It is no unusual thing 
when there is a baptism to see a number of the young 
people from the Children’s Church come stealing quietly 
into the galleries or upon the lower floor. After the 
special exercise which they came to witness is over, 
they often return to their own service. 

As a rule, the members of the Children’s Church 
become members of The Temple or of some other 
church. Frequently children of parents who belong to 
some other church, come to the Children’s Church, 
because there is no service of that kind in the church 
which their parents attend. But when the children 
are ready to join a church, they join their parents’ 
church. As far as records can be kept, it has been 
found that about seventy-five per cent of the members 
of the Children’s Church over ten years of age join 
some church. 

The Sunday-school is an important part of the work 
and services of The Temple. The youngest children 
are enrolled in the primary or kindergarten depart- 
ment. This has a bright, cheery room of its own in 


248 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the Lower Temple, with a leader and a number of 
young women scattered here and there among the 
children to look after their needs and keep them 
orderly. Hats are taken off and hung on pegs on the 
wall, and the youngsters are made to feel very much 
at home. 

The Intermediate Department claims the next oldest 
children. It is led by an orchestra composed of mem- 
bers of the Sunday-school, and the singing is joyous 
and spirited. The superintendent walks around among 
the scholars during the opening exercises smiling, 
encouraging, giving a word of praise and urging them 
to do better. The fresh, pure voices rise clear and 
strong. Outside, on Broad Street, people stop to listen. 
Men lean up against the windows and drink in the 
melody. No one knows what messages of peace and 
salvation those songs carry out to the throng on the 
city street. 

The classes of the Senior Department meet in the 
various rooms of the University, and the adult class 
in the auditorium of The Temple. The latter class 
Doctor Conwell conducted himself for a number of 
years, until pressure of work compelled him to use 
these hours for rest. A popular feature of his service 
was the question-box, in which he answered any 
question sent to him on any subject connected with 
religious life or experience, or Christian ethics in every- 
day life. The questions could be sent by mail or handed 
to him on the platform by the ushers. They were 
most interesting, and the service attracted men and 
women from all parts of the city. The following was 
one of the questions submitted during the year of 
building the College: 

“Five thousand dollars are due next week, and 
$15,000 next month. Will you set on foot means to 
raise this amount, or trust wholly to God’s direction?”’ 


TEMPLE SERVICES 249 


And the pastor answered from the platform: 

“T would trust wholly to God’s direction. This is 
», sort of test of faith, and I would make it more so in 
the building of the College. I do not know for certain 
now where the money is to come from next Wednesday. 
I have an idea; but a few days ago I did not know at 
all. I do not see where the $15,000 is to come from in 
December unless it be that the Feast of Tithes will 
bring in $10,000 towards it. That would be a mar- 
velous sum for the people to give, but if it is necessary 
they will give it. 

‘“We are workers together with God. I have partly 
given up my lecture work this month, as the church 
thought it was best, but suppose there should come to 
me from Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, or some other 
place a call to go and lecture on the tenth or twelfth 
of December, and they should offer me five hundred 
dollars or more, I would say immediately, ‘Yes, I 
will go,’ that is God’s call to help the College; that 
would be the direction of God. Such opportunities 
will come to those who should give this $15,000. 

‘“‘If God intends the amount due on the College to 
be paid—and I believe he does—He will cause the 
hearts of those who desire to help to give money toward 
this cause. We trust entirely to God. I don’t believe 
if I were to lie down, and the church should stop, that 
it would be paid. But I am sure if we work together 
with God, He will never fail to do as He promises, and 
He won’t ask us to do the impossible. I tell you, 
friends, I feel sure that the $5,000 will be paid next 
Wednesday, and I feel sure the $15,000 will be paid 
when it is due.” 

It may be interesting to know that the $5,000 was 
paid; and that when the $15,000 was due in December, 
the money was in the treasury of the church ready to 
be used. 


250 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


There are several interesting special features of the 
Sunday-school work. One of the prettiest is the offer- 
ing of birthday pennies. All the members who have 
had a birthday during the week come forward to put 
a penny for each year into the basket, after which an 
appropriate hymn is sung. 

The taking of the offering among the smaller chil- 
dren is also a pretty ceremony. Verses on giving are 
recited by the children; then one small child takes his 
stand in the doorway, holding the basket, and the 
children all march by and drop in their pennies. ‘The 
envelope system that is used in the church is being 
introduced into the Senior Department of the Sunday- 
school. By this system, the attendance as well as the 
collection is registered and its use lessens much of the 
clerical work of the service. 

From six-thirty on, there are meetings of Christain 
Endeavor or other societies in the Lower Temple. At 
seven-thirty the evening services begin and are contin- 
uous until nine o’clock. After the solemn benediction 
has been pronounced, a half hour or more of good fel- 
lowship follows. The pastor meets strangers, shakes 
hands with members, and makes a special effort to 
hold a few words of personal conversation with those 
who may have asked for prayers at some of the church 
services. Friends and acquaintances greet each other, 
and the home life of the church comes to the surface. 
The hand of the clock creeps to eleven and sometimes 
past, before the last member reluctantly leaves. 

Baptism is a very frequent part of the Sunday serv- 
ices at The Temple, usually taking place in the 
morning. It is a beautiful, solemn ordinance. The 
baptistry is a long, narrow pool, arranged to represent 
a running stream. Years ago, when Doctor Conwell 
was in Palestine, he was much impressed with the 


TEMPLE SERVICES 201 


beauty of the River Jordan at the place where Jesus 
was baptized. Always a lover of the beautiful in 
nature, the picture long remained in his memory— 
especially the leaves and blossoms that drifted on the 
stream. When The Temple was planned he thought of 
it, and determined to give the baptisma! pool as much 
of the beauty of nature as possible. 

It is fifteen feet wide and sixty feet long. The sides 
of the pool and the pulpit and platform, summer and 
winter, are banked with flowers, palms, moss and vines. 
On the surface of the water float blossoms, while at 
the back—banked with mosses and flowers—splashes 
and sparkles a little waterfall. It is a beautiful seene— 
one that never fades from the memory of the man or 
woman who is, “‘buried with Christ by baptism into 
death,” to be raised again in the likeness of His resur- 
rection. The candidates enter at the right and pass 
out at the left, the pastor pressing into the hands of 
each, some of the beautiful blossoms that float on the 
water. During the whole service the organ plays 
softly, the choir occasionally singing some favorite 
hymn. 

When the number of candidates is large, being on 
occasions aS many as one hundred and seventy-seven 
adults, the associate pastor assists. It is no unusual 
thing to see members of a family coming together to 
make this public profession of their faith. Husband 
and wife, in many cases; husband, wife and children 
in many others; a grandmother and two grandchildren 
on one occasion, and on yet another, a venerable, gray- 
haired nurse came with four of the family in which 
she had served for many years, and the five entered 
the baptistry together. 

‘“Among the converts,’ says one who witnessed a 
baptismal service, ‘‘there were aged persons with 


? 


252 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


silvered hair; stalwart men, fitted to bear the burdens 
of the church for many years to come; young men and 
maidens growing into strong men and women of the 
future church; little children, sweet in their simplicity 
and pure love of the Saviour—little children who were 
carried in the arms of those who assisted, and whom 
Doctor Conwell tenderly held in his arms as he buried 
them with Christ.” 

A unique feature which Doctor Conwell early intro- 
duced into the services of the church is the solemn 
ceremony of dedicating infants. Parents who wish 
may bring their child and reverently dedicate it to 
God, solemnly promising to do all within their power 
to train it to lead a Christian life, and to make a public 
profession of faith when it has arrived at the years of 
discretion. (See Appendix for ‘Form of Service.’’) 

A service very dear to the members of Grace Baptist 
Church is watch-meeting. ‘The services begin at eight 
o’clock New Year’s Eve, with a prayer-meeting which 
continues until about nine-thirty. An intermission 
follows and usually a committee of young people serve 
hght refreshments for those who want them. At 
eleven o’clock the watch-meeting begins. It is a deeply 
spiritual meeting, opened by the pastor with an earnest 
prayer for guidance in the year to come; for renewed 
consecration to the Master’s service; and for a better 
and higher Christian life, both as individuals and a 
church. 

Hymns follow and a brief talk on the year coming 
and its opportunities; of the record each will write on 
the clean white page in the book of life to be turned so 
soon. As midnight approaches every church member is 
asked to signify his re-dedication to God and His service 
by standing. Then the solemn question is put to others 
present if they do not want to give themselves to God— 


TEMPLE SERVICES 253 


not only for the coming year, but for all years? As 
twelve o’clock strikes, all bow in silent prayer while 
the organ softly breathes a sacred melody. <A few 
minutes later the meeting adjourns and ‘‘ Happy New 
Years” are exchanged. 

Several years ago a feature of these services was the 
playing of the church orchestra on the iron balcony 
over the great half-rose window on Broad Street. 
Sometimes an audience of a thousand people gathered 
on the street to listen to this musical sermon, preached 
at the parting of the ways. Sacred music on the 
baleony at midnight, also, for several years after The 
Temple was built, ushered in Christmas and Easter. 
‘‘On the street, long before the hour, the crowds 
would gather, waiting in reverent silence for the 
opening of the service,’ writes Robert Burdette, in 
“Temple and Templars.” 

“The inspiring strains of ‘the English Te Deum,’ 
‘Coronation,’ rose on the starlit night, thrilling every 
soul and suggesting in its triumphant measures, the 
lines of Perronet’s immortal hymn made sacred by a 
thousand associations, ‘All Hail the Power of Jesus’ 
Name.’ This greeting of the Resurrection, as it 
floated out over Monument Cemetery just opposite, 
where slept so many thousands, seemed like an assur- 
ance sent anew from above, cheering those who slept 
in Jesus, and telling them that as their Lord and King 
had risen, and now lives again, so shall they live also. 

“Men looked at the graves of them that slept; 
listened to the song of triumph that was making the 
midnight glorious; remembered the risen Christ who 
was the theme of the song; thought of that other 
midnight; the riven tomb—the broken power of 
Death—a conquered conqueror; and seemed to hear 
the Victor’s proclamation as the apostle of the Apoca- 


254 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


lypse heard it, pealing like a trumpet voice over all the 
earth, ‘I am the first and the last: I am He that 
liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forever- 
more, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death!’” 


CHAPTER XXVI 
TEMPLE PRAYER-MEETINGS 


Doctor Conwell Tells the Purpose a Prayer-Meeting 
Serves. The Various Prayer-Meetings of The 
Temple. The Method of Conducting Them. 


characterized by a cheery, homelike atmosphere 
that appeals at once to any one who may 
chance to enter: 

A prayer-meeting, according to Doctor Conwell’s 
views, is basically a ‘‘popular weekly gathering of 
the people for three purposes—united prayer, social 
acquaintances and counsel.’ ‘These three things are 
necessary to a church, he goes on to state, in discussing 
prayer-meetings. ‘‘In a multitude of councilors there 
is wisdom, and in a lot of people there are more ideas 
than one person can give. For the best conduct of 
the business of a church and for the most helpful 
social life, the ideas of many people are needed. ‘The 
prayer-meeting gives the opportunity for the free 
expression of these. 

“As to how a prayer-meeting can best work out 
these three purposes depends upon the people them- 
selves, their environment and their needs. Each 
locality would require its own kind of administration. 
But with these three basic purposes in mind, a prayer- 
meeting—no matter what form it may take—will be 
helpful to a church and to its members.” This is the 

(255) 


[Te prayer-meetings of Grace Baptist Church are 


256 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


foundation upon which the prayer-meetings of Grace 
Baptist Church are built. A description of one follows: 

‘When Doctor Conwell is not away lecturing, he 
frequently arrives ten or fifteen minutes before the 
time for the service to begin. As he walks to the plat- 
form he stops and chats with this one, shakes hands 
with another, and nods to many in the audience. At 
once, all stiffness and formalism vanish. It is a home 
—a gathering of brothers and sisters. It is the meeting 
together of two or three in His name—as in the old 
apostolic days—though these two or three are now 
counted by the hundreds. 

‘“When Doctor Conwell thus arrives early, the time 
is passed in singing. Often he utilizes these few min- 
utes to learn new hymns; so that when the real prayer- 
meeting is in progress, there will be no blundering 
through new tunes or weak-kneed renditions of them. 
The singing Doctor Conwell wants done with the spirit. 
He will not sing a verse if the heart and mind cannot 
endorse it. After singing several hymns in this fashion, 
every one present is fully in tune for the services to 
follow. 

‘The prayer-meeting opens with a short, earnest 
prayer. A hymn follows. It is Doctor Conwell’s 
practice to have any one call out the number of a 
hymn he would like sung. And it is no unusual thing 
to hear a perfect chorus of numbers after Doctor 
Conwell’s, ‘What shall we sing?’ A chapter from the 
Bible is read in accord with the topic of the evening 
and a short talk follows. Then Doctor Conwell says, 
‘The meeting now is in your hands,’ and sits down as 
if he had nothing more to do with it. But his subtle 
leadership is there ready to guide and direct. He 
never allows the meeting to grow dull, though it seldom 
exhibits a tendency to do so, 


TEMPLE PRAYER-MEETINGS 257 

“An interesting feature, and one that is helpful in 
leading church members to take part in the prayer- 
meeting, 1s the giving of Bible verses. It is a frequent 
feature of Grace Church prayer-meetings. ‘Let us 
have verses of Scripture,’ or, ‘Hach one give his favorite 
text,’ Doctor Conwell announces. Immediately from 
all parts of the large room come responses. Some rise 
to give them and others recite them sitting. Hundreds 
are frequently given in a short space of time, and some- 
times the speakers add a bit of personal experience 
connected with the verse. 

‘The prayer meetings are always full of singing— 
often of silent prayer. If no one seems moved by the 
spirit to give a testimony, hymn after hymn will be 
sung, or perhaps there will be several periods of silent 
prayer. But this seeming lack of active participation 
means no lack of spiritual refreshment, for when the 
meeting is closed all feel that through hymn or the still 
small voice they have received a message of help and 
cheer. Never does any meeting end without an invi- 
tation to those seeking God and wishing the prayers 
of the church, to signify it by rising. While the request 
is made, the audience is asked to bow in silent prayer 
that strength may be given those who want God’s 
help to make their desire known. In the solemn 
hush, one after another rises to his feet, to make this 
silent appeal for strength to lead a better life. Imme- 
diately Doctor Conwell leads into an earnest prayer 
that those seeking the way may find it, and that the 
peace that passeth understanding may come into their 
hearts and lives. 

“But Doctor Conwell does not let the matter rest 
there. After the services are over, each one who has 
risen is sought out by some member of the church, 
talked with in a friendly, sympathetic way, and his 


258 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


name and address taken. Sometimes this work is in 
charge of a committee, and sometimes it is left to the 
discretion of the members. The names and addresses 
are given to Doctor Conwell. If time permits, he 
writes to many of them. He makes all of them the 
subject of personal prayer. 

‘‘Frequently, before asking those to rise who wish 
the prayers of the church, Doctor Conwell asks if any 
one wishes to request prayers for others. ‘The response 
to this inquiry is always large. A member of the staff 
of The Temple Review made a note at one prayer-meet- 
ing of these requests and published it in the magazine. 
Three requests were made for husbands, eight for sons, 
one for a daughter, three for children, ten for brothers, 
two for sisters, two for fathers, one for a cousin, one for 
a brother-in-law, four for friends, eleven for Sunday- 
school scholars, one for a Sunday-school class, four for 
sick persons, two for scoffers, twenty-one for sinners, 
four for wanderers, five for persons addicted to drink, 
three for mission schools, five for churches—one that 
was divided, another deeply in debt, another for a sick 
pastor and the other two seeking a higher development 
in godliness. 

‘‘As many of these requests come from church mem- 
bers, both pastor and people pay especial attention to 
them and practically, as well as prayerfully, try to 
reach those for whom prayers are asked. In many 
cases distinct answers to these prayers are secured, so 
evident that none could mistake them. At a service 
a mother asked prayers for a wayward son in Chicago. 
Doctor Conwell and some of the deacons led the church 
in prayer for the boy, very definitely and in faith. 
At that same hour—as the young man afterward 
related—he was passing a church in Chicago, and felt 
strangely impressed to enter and give his heart to 


TEMPLE PRAYER-MEETINGS 259 


Christ. It was something he had no intention of doing 
when he left his hotel a few minutes before. But he 
went in; joined in the meeting; asked for forgiveness 
of his sins and the prayers of the church to help him 
to lead a better life; and accepted Christ as his personal 
Saviour. In the joy of his new experience, he wrote 
his mother immediately. 

“At another prayer-meeting Doctor Conwell read a 
letter from a gentleman requesting the prayers of the 
church for his little boy whom the doctors had given 
up to die. He stated in the letter that if God would 
spare his child in answer to prayer, he would go any- 
where and do anything the Lord might direct. After 
reading the letter Doctor Conwell led earnestly in 
prayer, beseeching that the child’s life might be saved, 
since it meant much for the cause of Christ on earth. 
Several members of the church made fervent prayers 
for the child and, at the close of the meeting, many 
expressed themselves as being confident that their 
prayers would be answered. At that same hour the 
disease turned. The child has grown to be a young 
man, and with his father is a member of Grace Church. 
At a recent service, more than six hundred asked for 
prayers and, during the week that followed, a large 
proportion of them told Doctor Conwell that their 
prayers had been answered. Such direct, unmis- 
takable answers strengthen faith; give confidence to 
ask for prayers for loved ones; and make it a very 
earnest and solemn part of the prayer-meeting service. 
Thus working and praying, praying and working, the 
church marches forward. With its three thousand 
members united in the sole desire to stand for what is 
uplifting in life and eager to help either a cause or a 
single individual in need, it has tremendous power 
for good.” 


17 


260 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


“In no other city in the country is there such an 
example of the quickening force of a united and work- 
ing church organization as is given by the North 
Broad Street Temple, Philadelphia,’ says an editorial 
writer in a Philadelphia paper. ‘Twenty such churches 
in this city of 1,650,000 people would do more to 
evangelize it and re-awaken an interest in the vital 
truths of Christianity than the hundreds of church 
organizations it now has. ‘The world is demanding 
more and better returns from the church for the time 
and money given it. Real, practical Christian work 
is what is asked of the church. ‘The sooner it conforms 
to this demand, the more quickly it will regain its old 
influence and be prepared to make effective its fight 
against evil.” 

That this practical Christian work is within the 
power of any body of Christian workers to do, the 
history of this church proves. It started with but a 
handful of people and without money. It was their 
sincere desire to serve God, and their willingness to 
work and to sacrifice which has led them to their 
present position of usefulness. God worked with them. 
But He is ‘‘no respecter of persons.” The message 
of Grace Baptist Church over and beyond the actual 
work it has done, which is but the “‘sign following,” 
is one of cheer. From apparent failure; from small 
beginnings; from almost nothing in the way of the 
world’s goods has come great abundance of good. 


CHAPTER XXVII 
How TremMpLE UNIversity TRANSFORMS LIFE 


The Reason Instruction at Temple University 
Means More than in Many Institutions. Doctor 
Conwell Tells How It Came to Be. Rev. Forest 
Dager Shows the Need of It. 


Doctor Conwell in Philadelphia is the Temple 

University. If he had rendered no other 

service to the city but the founding of this 
University, this act alone would establish him as 
having done incalculable good to the community. 
Churches and hospitals have been a part of the estab- 
lished order of things for centuries; but it is doubtful 
if there is or ever has been such another institution as 
Temple University. There was certainly none when 
it was founded. It was, and is, unique. And that it 
fills a great need is shown by the thousands of eager 
grateful and happy students who yearly throng it. 

In the lifetime of its founder, it had more than 
one hundred thousand students. This in itself is 
remarkable. Few, if any, educational institutions of 
similar character the world around can point to such 
a record. ‘This very fact shows how great was the 
need for it in American life today. The response to 
the opening of its doors was so great and so overwhelm- 
ing that it banished at once any doubt as to the 
demand for such an institution, or its present or 
future usefulness. 

But of far greater significance than the attendance 
was, in its early days especially, the character of the 

) (261) 


C)> of the greatest monuments to the work of 


262 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORE 


attendance. The people who came to Temple Uni- 
versity then were, most of them, working men and 
women. ‘They were men and women who must earn 
their living and who had only their evenings—or a 
spare hour or so during the day—to study. They 
came to Temple University during those spare hours, 
or at night, and pursued any special study or course 
of study they wished. ‘They often spent years studying 
before they were able to graduate. 

This tremendous response to such a means of getting 
an education showed how anxious were those deprived 
of the usual means of study to improve their condition, 
To this University came life—unformed and unedu- 
cated—and it was molded into usefulness and beauty. 
Lives that might have been dwarfed, cramped and 
narrow without the help which the University 
gave were broadened out into greater joy and 
usefulness. It is this which makes the attendance 
record of those early days so remarkable. For almost 
every one of the earlier students had a vividly inter- 
esting life-story to tell because of Temple University— 
a story of the enrichment of life; of the fulfilment or— 
to give it the literal meaning—the filling full of life, 
because of what was received there. 

A young man who longed for an education, but 
who had no means of securing one in his native city, 
came to Philadelphia when he heard of Temple Uni- 
versity with exactly thirty cents in his pocket. Today 
he is a judge. Temple University was the bridge from 
ignorance and poverty to knowledge and power. 

A young girl who had been unable to. go beyond the 
lower grades in school because of the need of her earn- 
ings in the home, could only secure work that paid 
two dollars and fifty cents a week. Some one told 
her of Temple University and advised her to study 


TEMPLE UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS LIFE 263 


bookkeeping there. In a short time she was earning 
ten dollars a week; was continuing her education and 
was a transformed person. 

A poor, ignorant breaker boy came from the mining 
districts, having heard of the Temple University. He 
studied at night and worked during the day. He 
became one of the official stenographers connected with 
the Panama Canal Commission. Without the oppor- 
tunity Temple University gave him, he would probably 
still be in the mining district, stunted in body and mind. 

A young girl, belonging to one of the poorest families 
in one of the most sordid quarters of Philadelphia, was 
brought under the influence of the Temple University. 
She entered its classes; became one of its most enthu- 
siastic students, and is now at the head of a training 
school for nurses which she established in a foreign 
land. Her brother, who was induced by her to become 
a student, is one of the prosperous and responsible 
business men of a growing town in the South. 

One boy studied at night for nineteen long years, 
taking a single course ata time, working meanwhile to 
earn his living during the day, until at last he satis- 
factorily passed for the bar and is now a successful 
lawyer. Another student was earning six dollars a 
week when he entered. He is now receiving $6,000 a 
year in a government position at Washington. 

One of the students in the early days at the college 
was a poor boy without any education whatever. He 
had been compelled to help earn the family living as 
soon as he was able, because his father was a drunkard. 
For fifteen years he studied, passing from one grade to 
another. Finally he had the great joy of being ordained. 

Such are the life stories of these students. The 
records, were they written, would fill volumes. Thou- 
zands upon thousands of lives are transformed in this 


264 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


way by the Temple University. All over the world 
are men and women who have risen to places of power 
and usefulness through the opportunity to get an 
education given by the Temple University, and which 
is not furnished in the same way by any other 
educational institution. 

As the years have passed, the enrollment has been 
from all classes of people. Those who must earn as 
they learn still throng it. But so high do its students 
stand when life puts the acid test upon the product of 
school days that parents in all walks of life are now 
eager to send their young people to Temple University. 

‘“Next to our common school system, there is no 
institution in this city,’’ says one of the leading Phila- 
delphia newspapers ‘“‘so necessary to the welfare of our 
people as the Temple University.” 

This almost phenomenal work which the Temple 
University accomplishes started in a small way and 
from “doing the next thing.’ In speaking of its 
inception Doctor Conwell says: 

“The Temple University is another surprising 
development far beyond the plans and intentions of 
those of us who had to do with its beginning. The 
friends who gathered about me were all inspired with 
the desire to do good in the Master’s name and simply 
did ‘the next thing,’ and tried to do it well. No one 
could have believed when Charles M. Davies, a young 
printer, came to me for instruction in Latin and Greek 
with a view to his entering the Christian ministry, 
that from his application there would have come so 
immeasurable a result. None of us could take to 
ourselves the credit of having laid out plans which could 
have reached such a successful position as the Temple 
University holds now as an agency for the good of 
mankind. 


TEMPLE UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS LIFE 265 


“T had been a poor boy and was obliged to sacrifice 
much to secure an education,” said Doctor Conwell. 
‘‘T was compelled to rise at four o’clock in the morning 
io help the steward of the New Haven Hotel at Yale 
College in order to get the ‘come backs’ from the 
tables, which supplied myself and my brother with 
our board. I had suffered the tortures of a poor 
college boy—obliged to wear seedy clothing and with- 
out extra money to pay entrance fees into social clubs 
or share in the festivities of the ‘Wooden Spoon.’ 

“When young Davies said he desired so much to 
have an education, my sympathies were deeply aroused 
and I determined to help him in every possible way, 
and told him that he should have three evenings a 
week of my time for at least one hour each night. 
But when he came for his recitation, he brought with 
him six other young men who had the same ambition 
and who hoped that I might be able to teach a class 
without more expense of time or money than it would 
take to teach one scholar. 

‘“‘T explained to them what a sacrifice it would be to 
them but what the gains would also be, and at the 
second meeting of the class I was overwhelmed by the 
attendance of forty hopeful and enterprising young 
men. There were but a few of them who intended to 
enter the ministry, but all desired a wider education, 
and many hoped to increase their income as a con- 
sequence of practical, intellectual training. 

“Then we organized an evening school with volunteer 
teachers, and established regular grades of instruction, 
and, at the beginning of the second year, had over two 
hundred and fifty students. We required thorough 
study and insisted upon careful examinations with 
regular promotion on merit. We felt sure that careless 
instruction in evening classes on the go-as-you-please 


266 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


plan of attendance was of more injury then good to 
the young people of the city. 

‘‘Such teaching assisted them into habits of careless- 
ness, neglect and laziness, which destroy the hope of 
final success. We, therefore, insisted upon a real 
school to be attended by real scholars—where regular 
study was required and where the teachers were 
inspired by a real desire to be of practical but positive 
help. Since then almost 100,000 students have already 
been taught in regular courses in the institution, and 
now every large nation in the world contributes towards 
the list of students who attend. 

“The enterprise has had its dark days, when great 
sacrifices were necessary for its continuance. It has 
had the opposition of some employers who feared that 
an education would turn their employees into other 
occupations, and it has had the prejudice of the rich 
who naturally desire to keep the higher places of earth 
for their sons and daughters, and who often stated that 
they feared the institution was educating the common 
people ‘above their station’ and would lead the poor 
people to be ambitious for places which could only be 
occupied to advantage by the wealthy. 

“While the rich institutions of the land received 
millions and millions from the gifts of the wealthy and 
seemed to have more money floating into their treasuries 
than they were able to administrate, yet the Temple 
University, without endowment and without gifts of 
the rich, kept steadily rising to favor and to power, 
until the natural rise in the value of property given to 
it laid the foundation for a permanent institution and 
landed it safely beyond the danger cf financial wreck. 

“The list of men and women who cheerfully gave 
their all to the support of that institution is after all a 
long one, and when the eternal roll is opened which 


TEMPLE UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS LIFE 267 


contains the names of those who made the largest 
sacrifices to establish that beneficial institution in its 
present position of influence, there will be found many 
names which are not now mentioned—and those of us 
who have lived to receive the sweet tributes of praise 
and honors are really the least among the builders of 
the Temple University. ‘God moves in a mysterious 
way his wonders to perform.’ And having the spirit 
and disposition to serve God, those men and women 
were used beyond their own expectations, and found 
themselves unintentionally more important instru- 
ments in the hands of the living God than they had 
hoped. ‘I feel as one who walks alone, some banquet 
hall deserted,’ as I strive to recall that glorious com- 
pany of men and women who, in the weeks of holy 
labor, laid the foundations for the Temple University. 
God bless their memories.” 

A short time after Charles M. Davies and his poor 
young friends applied for instruction, Dr. Conwell 
wrote a member of his family of how the idea 
their need had suggested was further shaped by other 
influences and gradually took definite form. ‘“‘A 
woman, ragged and with an old shawl over her head, 
met me in an alley in Philadelphia late one night,” 
he said in this letter. “‘She saw the basket on my arm, 
and looked in my face wistfully, as a dog looks up 
beside the dinner table. She was hungry, and was 
coming in empty. I shook my head, and with a 
peculiarly sad glance she turned down the dark 
passage. I had found several families hungry, and yet 
I felt like a hypocrite, standing there with an empty 
basket and a woman—perhaps a mother—so pale for 
the lack of decent food. 

“‘On the corner was a church—stately and archi- 
tecturally beautiful by day—but after midnight it 


268 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


resembled a glowering ogre, and looked so like Newgate 
Prison, in London, that I felt its chilly shadow. Half 
a million cost the cemented pile, and under its side 
arch lay two newsboys or bootblacks asleep on the step. 

‘“‘What is the use? We cannot feed these people. 
Give all you have, and an army of the poor will still 
have nothing; and those to whom you do give bread 
and clothes today will be starving and naked tomorrow. 
If you care for the few, the many will curse you for 
your partiality. While I stood meditating, the police 
patrol drove along the street, and I could see by the 
corner street lamp that there were two women, one 
little girl, and a drunken old man in the conveyance, 
going to jail. 

‘At my door I found a man dressed in costly fashion 
who had waited for me outside, as he had been told 
that I would come soon and the family had retired. 
He said his dying father had sent for me. So I left 
the basket in the side yard and went with the messenger. 
The house was a mansion on Spring Garden Street. 
The place was inelegantly overloaded with luxurious 
furniture—money wasted by some inartistic purchasers 
—and the paintings were rare and rich. The family of 
seven or eight gathered by the bedside when I prayed 
for the dying old man. They were grief-stricken and 
begged me to stay until his soul departed. 

“Tt was daylight before I left’ the bedside and, as 
the dying still showed that the soul was delaying its 
journey, I went into the spacious, handsome library. 
Seeing a rare book in costly binding among the volumes 
on the lower shelf, I opened the door and took it out. 
My hands were black with dust. Then I glanced 
along the rows and rows of valuable books and noticed 
the dust of months or years. The family were not 
students or readers. One son was in the Albany 


TEMPLE UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS LIFE 269 


Penitentiary; another was a fugitive in Canada. At 
the funeral, afterwards, the wife and daughter from 
Newport were present, and their tears made furrows 
through the paint upon their faces. Those rich people 
were strangely poor, and a book on a side table on the 
Abolition of Poverty’ seemed to be in the right place. 

“That night was conceived the Temple College idea 
which, in a way, had been germinating since Charles 
M. Davies and his poor young friends had come to 
me. It was no new truth; no original invention, but 
merely a simpler combination of old ideas. There 
was but one remedy for all of these ills of poor and 
rich, and that could only be found in a more useful 
education. Poverty seemed to me to be wholly that 
of the mind. Want of food, or clothing, or home, or 
friends, or morals, or religion, seemed to be the lack of 
right instruction and proper discipline. The truly 
wise man need not lack the necessities of life; the 
wisely-educated man or woman will get out of the 
dirty alley and will not get drunk or go to jail. It 
seemed to me, then, that the only great charity was in 
giving instruction. 

“The first class to be considered was the destitute 
poor. Not one in a thousand of those living in rags 
and on crusts would remain in poverty if he had educa- 
tion enough of the right kind to earn a better living by 
making himself more useful. He is poor because he 
does not know any better. Knowledge is both wealth 
and power. 

“The next class who stand in need of the assistance 
love wishes to give is the great mass of industrious 
people of all grades who are earning something—those 
who are not cold or hungry, but who should earn more 
in order to secure the greater necessities of life that 
make for happiness. They could be so much more 


270 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


useful if they knew how. ‘To learn how to do more 
work in the same time—or how to do much better 
work—is the only true road to riches which the owner 
can enjoy. 

“To help a man to help himself is the wisest effort 
of human love. To have wealth, and to have honestly 
earned it all by skill or wisdom, is an object of ambition 
worthy of the highest and best. Hence, to do the most 
good to the great classes—rich or poor—we must labor 
industriously. The lover of his kind must furnish 
them with the means of gaining knowledge while they 
work. 

“Then there was a third class of mankind, starving 
with their tables breaking with luscious foods; cold 
in warehouses of ready-made clothing of the most 
costly fabrics; seeing not in the sunlight, and restless 
to distraction on beds of eiderdown. ‘They do not 
know the use or value of things. They are harassed 
with plenty that they cannot appropriate. ‘They are 
doubly poor. They need an education. ‘The library is 
a care, an expense and a disgrace to the owner who 
cannot read. 

“To give education to those in possession of prop- 
erty which they might use for the help of humanity 
and which they might enjoy, is as clear a duty as it 
is to help the beggar. And, indeed, indirectly the 
education of the unwise wealthy to become useful may 
be the most practical way of raising the poor. ‘There 
is a need for every dollar of the nation’s property, and 
it should be invested by men whose minds and hearts 
have been trained to see the human need and to love to 
satisfy it.’ 

Thus was the Temple University conceived and 
started. Its growth was phenomenal. From the 
request of one, to an attendance of six the first evening; 


——— ——— 


TEMPLE UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS LIFE 271 


of forty the second evening, and two hundred and 
fifty regularly enrolled students at the beginning of the 
first year, shows how the good news swept the city, 
and how the opportunity was eagerly seized by those 
longing for just such an opening. The University 
was justified from the start. 

Rev. Forest Dager—at one time Dean of Temple 
College, the forerunner of the University—said in 
regard to the people who in later life crave opportunities 
for study: 

“That the Temple College idea of educating working 
men and working women, at an expense just sufficient 
to give them an appreciation of the work of the institu- 
tion, covers a wide and long-neglected field of educa- 
tional effort, is at once apparent to a thoughtful mind. 
Remembering that out of a total enrolment in the 
schools of our land of all grades, public and private, of 
14,512,778 pupils, 9644 per cent are reported as 
receiving elementary instruction only; that not more 
than thirty-five in 1,000 attend school after they are 
fourteen years of age; that twenty-five of these drop 
out during the next four years of their life; that less 
than ten in 1,000 pass on to enjoy the superior instruc- 
tion of a college or some equivalent grade of work, we 
begin to see the unlimited field before an institution 
like this. 

“Thousands upon thousands of those who have left 
school quite early in life, either because they did not 
appreciate the advantage of a liberal education, or 
because the stress of circumstances compelled them to 
assist In the maintenance of home, awake a few 
years later to the realization that a good education is 
more than one-half the struggle for existence and 
position. Their time through the day is fully occupied; 
their evenings are free. At once they turn to the 


272 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


evening college and, grasping the opportunities for 
instruction, convert those hours, which to many are 
the pathway to vice and ruin, into stepping stones to a 
higher and more useful career. 

‘“‘An illustration of the wide-reaching influence of 
the college work is a significant fact that during one 
year there was personally known to the president, no 
less than ninety-three persons pursuing their studies 
in various universities of our country, who received 
their first impulses toward a higher education and a 
wider usefulness in Temple College.” 

In 1893, in an address on the institutional church, 
delivered before the Baptist Ministers’ Conference in 
Philadelphia, Doctor Conwell said: 

‘‘ At the present time there are in this city hundreds 
of thousands, to speak conservatively—I should say 
at least 500,000 people—who have not the education 
they certainly wish they had obtained before leaving 
school. There are at least 100,000 people in this city 
willing to sacrifice their evenings and some of their 
sleep to get an education, if they can get it without 
the humiliation of being put into classes with boys 
and girls six years old. They are in every city. There 
is a large class of young people who have reached the 
age where they find they have made a mistake in not 
getting a better education. If they could obtain one 
now—in a proper way—they would. Universities 
do not furnish such an opportunity and neither does 
the public school. 

“The churches must institute schools for those 
whom the public does not educate, and must educate 
them along the lines they cannot reach in the public 
schools. Weare not to withdraw our support from, nor 
to antagonize, the public schools; as they are the 
foundations of liberty in the nation. But the public 


TEMPLE UNIVERSITY TRAN SFORMS LIFE 273 


schools do not teach many things which young men and 
young women need. 

‘T believe every church should institute classes for 
the education of such people, and I believe the insti- 
tutional church will require it. I believe every evening 
in the week should be given to some particular kind 
of intellectual training along some educational line; 
that this training should begin with the more evident 
needs of the young people in each congregation, and 
then be adjusted, as the matter grows, to the wants 
of each.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
A UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE 


Obtaining the Charter. Laying the Corner-Stone. 
The Ultimate Development that is Hoped Will 
Come. 


the Temple University was genuine, as was 

shown by the students who came in great 

throngs from all parts of the city, it was not 
an easy matter at first to meet this need. When the 
first class was started, Doctor Conwell had only been 
in the city two years. The church itself was still 
struggling with its own problems of larger accommoda- 
tions for the crowds that came. 

But Doctor Conwell is never one to be daunted by 
seemingly insurmountable obstacles, nor by lack of 
money, if he feels that a work should be done. He 
believes that a genuine need carries with it potentially 
and inherently the power that will supply that need; 
and that the human agent is but the channel for the 
expression of the supply. This is the rock upon which 
he stands—the faith that upholds him in his under- 
takings. Thus, side by side with the church work in 
those busy days of building the great Temple on 
Broad Street, went the evolution and development of 
the University that now stands beside it. 

The first catalogue of the Temple College was issued 
in 1887, and the institution was chartered in 1888, 
at which time there were five hundred and ninety 
students. The College overflowed the basement of 

(274) 


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A UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE 275 


the church into two adjoining houses. When The 
Temple was completed the College occupied the old 
church building at the corner of Berks and Mervine 
Streets. When that building was filled to overflow- 
ing the College moved into two large houses on Park 
Avenue. Still growing, it rented two large halls. 

The news that in these halls the Temple College had 
enlarged quarters brought such a flood of students that 
almost from the start applicants were turned away. 
Nothing was to be done but to build. It was a serious 
problem. The church itself had just been completed 
and a heavy debt of $250,000 hung over it. To add 
the cost of a college to this burden required faith of 
the highest order and work of the hardest. 

‘“‘For seven years I have felt a firm conviction that 
the great work—the special duty of our church—is 
to establish the College,” said Doctor Conwell, in 
speaking of the matter to his congregation. ‘‘We are 
now face to face with it. How distinctly we have 
been led of God to this point! Never before in the 
history of this nation have a people had committed to 
them a movement more important for the welfare of 
mankind than that which is now committed to your 
trust in connection with the permanent establishment 
of the Temple College. We step now over the brink. 
Our feet are already in the water, and God says, ‘Go 
on, it shall be dry-shod for you yet,’ and I say that 
the success of this institution means others like it in 
every town of 5,000 inhabitants in the United States. 

‘One thing we have demonstrated—those who work 
for a living have time to study. Some splendid speci- 
mens of scholarship have been developed in our work. 
And there are others—splendid geniuses—yet undis- 
covered; but the Temple College will bring them to 
the light, and the world will be richer for them. By 


18 


276 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


the use of spare hours—hours usually running to 
waste—great things can be done. ‘The commendation 
of these successful students will do more for the College 
than any number of rich friends can do. It will make 
friends; it will bring money; it will win honor, and 
it will secure success.” 

An investment fund was created and once more the 
people made their offerings. ‘The same self-sacrificing 
spirit was shown that had been so in evidence in the 
building of the church. It is doubtful if any educa- 
tional institution of the country has been founded on 
such genuine self-denial. Children brought dimes and 
quarters and half dollars—their first earnings; women 
sold their jewelry that they might help the poor into 
broader life; and families cheerfully cut down their 
marketing that they might give food for the mind to 
those in need of it. Few large gifts were received. It 
is a university for the people and it has been built by 
the people. Perhaps that is the reason that it meets 
so fully the needs of the people. 

Thus the work progressed. In August, 1893, the 
corner-stone of the College building was laid. Taking 
up the silver trowel which had been used in laying the 
corner-stone of The Temple in 1889, Doctor Conwell 
sald: 

“Friends, today we do something more than simply 
lay the corner-stone of a college building. We do an 
act here very simply that shows to the world—and will 
go on testifying after we have gone to our long rest— 
that the Church of Jesus Christ is not only an institu- 
tion of theory but an institution of practice. It will 
stand here upon this great broad street and say through 
the coming years to all passersby, ‘Christianity means 
something for the good of humanity; Christianity 
means not only belief in things that are good and pure 


A UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE 277 


and righteous, but it also means an activity that 
shall bless those who need the assistance of others.’ 
It shall say to the rich man, ‘Give thou of thy surplus 
to those who have not.’ It shall say to the poor man, 
‘Make thou the most of thy opportunities and thou 
shalt be the equal of the rich.’ 

‘Now, in the name of the people who have given for 
this enterprise; in the name of many Christians who 
have prayed, and who are now sending up their prayers 
to heaven, I lay this corner-stone.”’ 

The work went on. In May, 1894, a great congrega- 
tion thronged The Temple to attend the dedication 
services of ‘‘Temple College;’”’ for it was in its new 
home—a handsome building presenting, with The 
Temple, a beautiful stone front of two hundred feet on the 
broad avenue which it faces. Robert E. Pattison, 
then Governor of Pennsylvania, presided, saying, in 
his introductory remarks, ‘Around this noble city 
many institutions have arisen in the cause of education, 
but I doubt whether any of them will possess a greater 
influence for good than Temple College.” 

Bishop Foss, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
offered prayer. The orator was Hon. Charles Emory 
Smith, of Philadelphia, ex-Minister to Russia. James 
Johnson, the builder, gave the keys to the architect, 
Thomas P. Lonsdale, who delivered them to the 
pastor of Grace Baptist Church and president of 
Temple College, remarking that, ‘It was well these 
keys should be in the hands of those who already held 
the keys to the inner temple of knowledge.” 

President Conwell, in receiving these keys, said: ‘‘ By 
united effort, penny by penny, and dollar by dollar, 
every note had been paid, and every financial obliga- 
tion promptly met. It is a demonstration of what 
people can do when thoroughly in earnest in a great 
enterprise.” 


278 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


The classes at first were entirely free, but as the 
attendance increased, it was found necessary to charge 
a nominal fee in order to keep out those who had no 
serious desire for study, but came irregularly, ‘“‘just for 
the fun of the thing.”’ When it was decided to charge 
a small fee for the privilege of attending, the announce- 
ment was received with the unanimous approbation of 
the students who honestly wished to study and who, 
more than any others, were hindered by the aimless 
element. 

Still the demands upon the College grew and the 
trustees saw the need of increasing its facilities. On 
December 12, 1907, the charter was amended, changing 
the name from Temple College to Temple University. 
Additional buildings were secured to increase the 
facilities for classes. The Philadelphia Dental College 
and the Garretson Hospital were federated with it, 
thus opening avenues of study and usefulness in new 
fields. Conwell Hall, the first wing of the large and 
imposing group of buildings planned for Broad Street 
between the original University building and Mont- 
gomery Avenue, adds many fine classrooms, a well- 
equipped gymnasium, a swimming pool, an up-to-date 
cafeteria, as well as administrative offices and other 
facilities. Each year sees some increase in Temple 
University’s scope or accommodations. It grows as 
needs present themselves. Speaking of the future he 
hopes for the University, Doctor Conwell, at a recent 
celebration of Founder’s Day, said: 

“We have been struggling upward toward an ideal 
which we haven’t quite reached yet. But, with the 
aid of our fellow Philadelphians, we are confident 
that this ideal will be placed within our power of real- 
ization within the next few months, and possibly 
within the next few weeks. Then will come the 


A UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE 279 


apex—the crowning of our ideas and ideals for Temple 
University. 

“We founded the institution to supply a human 
need. Let me illustrate: Some time ago I happened 
to be near a baseball park. Happy thousands inside 
were cheering the players. I induced a small boy to 
let me have a peep through the knothole which he had 
claimed as his own. I saw the crowd, and I saw the 
players running around the diamond; but I had never 
had time to see the game before and consequently knew 
nothing of baseball. Then I recognized my loss. I 
bought a book and studied it for about three hours. 
I called to my aid a man well versed in the game. 
The next time I have an opportunity I shall see a game 
of baseball. I have laid hold of a new way of enjoying 
this world because I have learned this game. 

“That is the great need of humanity today—the 
need for the enjoyment of this world in which we live. 
But the capacity for enjoyment must be enlarged by 
the study of the objects in the world. Instruction 
' and inspiration are thus the great need of humanity, 
and The Temple idea is the universal education of all 
the people after they leave the public schools. It is 
our first aim to teach people to be more useful to their 
employers and thus be of more help to themselves and 
those dependent on them. 

“Tt is impossible that this work can be done by the 
state. Our city, state and national government 
could never maintain an institution so immense in 
scope. The cost would be too great and it would be 
unjust to tax all the people for the benefit of those 
with the ambition to make their own way to the top 
of the ladder. And so, in this ideal of ours, the stu- 
dent must pay his tuition. Every boy in America 
should follow the ancient custom of learning a trade. 


280 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


And while learning his life-work under practical con- 
ditions, he must pay his own way through the uni- 
versity. I can think of nothing greater than for a 
young man or woman to be able to look the world 
squarely in the eye and say, ‘I have gone through 
college. I made my own living at the same time. 
I have paid my way. I have earned my education 
myself.’ Such a course redoubled the value of the 
graduate to the world.” 

Doctor Conwell then explained that the idea of the 
ultimate extension of Temple University would mean 
a university in every ward throughout Philadelphia. 
In this way, he declared, higher education would not 
only be placed within the grasp of every boy or girl 
in Philadelphia, but would be brought practically to 
the door of every home in the city. 

Doctor Conwell is also much interested in the part 
time work that is engaging the attention of educators. 
And this system of carefully planned and supervised 
study and work is being introduced into Temple Uni- 
versity methods when it is possible and wise to adopt it. 

Thus, it was Doctor Conwell’s ambition that a com- 
plete education be right at hand for every boy and 
girl, and every man and woman in Philadelphia—an 
education to be given in such a way that no matter 
what each person’s means, nor how occupied his time, 
he can avail himself of this opportunity and become as 
well educated as though wealth and leisure were his. 

And Doctor Conwell believed that by working and 
studying—as so many of the students of Temple 
University do—they really get a fuller, richer educa- 
tion, and have a better understanding of life, than do 
many of those students whose way is paid through 
college. But, be this as it may, he desired for the 
poor the same opportunity to develop life to its fullest 


A UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE 281 


extent that wealth is able to bring. He wanted for 
every one who comes into this world, the joy, the 
breadth and the enrichment of life that a full education 
affords. Of this ideal, one of the speakers at the 
Founder’s Day celebration said: 

“Tonight we honor the realization of a vision of one 
man; an idea materialized; an ambition embodied. 
Doctor Conwell’s vision was constructive rather than 
destructive; beneficial rather than prejudicial to man- 
kind; an idea which opened the gates of opportunity for 
every deserving man and woman of Philadelphia. The 
realization and fruition of this idea is a blessing and a 
credit to those who have aided in bringing it to pass, 
and a monument to the man who conceived it. 

‘‘ After living at least three lives in one, he has now 
a still greater idea—the greatest of them all. We can 
only paraphrase Lincoln and express the hope that the 
people of Philadelphia will here, this night, highly 
resolve that the university of the people, by the people, 
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’’ 

Thus, because one poor boy struggled so bitterly for 
an education; because a keen-eyed man saw another’s 
needs, reading the signs by the light of his own bitter 
experience, a great university for busy men and 
women has grown to make possible to them the 
education which is bread and meat to their minds. 


CHAPTER XXX 
A Democratic INSTITUTION 


What the Opportunities it Offers Mean. Its 
Adaptable Curriculum. Its Willingness to Meet 
Needs. The Various Departments. Many Unique 
Special Courses. Its Small Turtion Fees. 


institution. Through its portals pass young 

and old, rich and poor. Children from the 

kindergarten walk in and out side by side with 
gray-haired men and women; and boys and girls from 
wealthy families with young men and women from 
shops and factories. 

The management endeavors to meet the needs of 
these various students. President, dean, clerical force 
and teachers bend their energies to supply, in the 
simplest and most efficient way, what this great army 
of seekers desire. 

The classes are most interesting. Nearly all nation- 
alities are represented, and almost all occupations. A 
visit to the various classrooms during recitation hours 
is most enjoyable. Upon one such visit one evening, 
a young lad of about sixteen was called upon by the 
teacher for a declamation. He was pale, with deep- 
sunken eyes, and looked as if he worked at a loom. 
He came forward without diffidence and began to 
describe a landscape. Under his expressive gestures 
and the changing modulations of his voice, the picture 
grew before the eyes of his hearers. 

He was totally unconscious of himself and his audi- 

(282) 


? YHE Temple University is truly a democratic 


A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION 283 


ence. He lived in the scene he was painting. His 
eyes glowed. His voice, like the strings of a harp, 
was swept with feeling. Those who heard him felt 
that, could he pursue his studies, he would probably 
become a public speaker. Were not this opportunity 
open to him, he might be compelled to spend his life 
at a monotonously clicking loom. 

In the same class were girls who looked as if they 
worked hard and had not too great a supply of food, 
and matrons probably away for a brief while from 
housekeeping cares. ‘These few hours of study in the 
University classrooms gave refreshing glimpses into a 
world outside of the narrow one of work in which they 
daily lived. 

In another class was a young fellow, distinguished 
looking in bearing and features. It was learned that 
he was a fireman in a nearby foundry. He had care- 
fully planned his hours off duty that he might prepare 
for the bar without detriment to health or work. His 
future as a lawyer seems assured. Yet without this 
opportunity he might be condemned to a grimy foun- 
dry; and perhaps sink lower in the scale of living as 
the years passed, because of inhibited desires. 

In a room were a group of deft craftsmen busily 
making baskets and other articles from reed and 
various grasses. <A bright-eyed youth who looked as 
if he might be an Armenian was making a beautiful 
little stand, the equal of any that could be purchased in 
the furniture shops. 

In another part of the building a large class of young 
and old were being instructed in the mysteries of 
cooking. On the floor above, in a homelike room, with 
tables and sewing machines, pattern books and forms, 
a group was learning to make dresses. 

“English comp” was the name given by a student 


284 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


to a bright-looking class in a large, cheerful room. 
The girls looked as if they had been working hard all 
day, but they were eager and enthusiastic. Perhaps 
from among them will come some great delineator of 
American life. 

In a nearby room, a teacher was discussing the 
problems of municipalities. In another, the intricacies 
of German verbs were being explained. A group of 
men who looked as though they came from business 
offices was engrossed in laboratory experiments in a 
room of shelves and queer-looking apparatus. In a 
pleasant room with tables and chairs, a class in botany 
analyzed the flowers and foliage spread about on the 
tables, and tabulated for future reference the data 
gathered. 

As the gong sounded for change of classes, teachers 
in earnest consultation with pupils stood at the doors 
of the classrooms, or at the desks, giving final words 
of encouragement or explanation. 

Day and night a stream of people pours in and out 
of the business office. ‘They come to see if they can 
take up some special subject at an hour that suits 
their convenience; to find out what it will cost to study 
a certain branch; and to inquire if it is possible to get 
instruction which they cannot find taught elsewhere 
at a convenient time or within their means. 

The adaptability to a need is one of the great fea- 
tures of the work of Temple University. Its cur- 
riculum is elastic and the faculty never fails to 
change or modify their plans at once, if, by so doing, 
they can serve a greater number than they are serv- 
ing at the moment. Perhaps Doctor Conwell, when 
laying plans for the University, thought of his own 
struggles at Yale, when he was often handicapped 
by scholastic red tape, and so decided to put as few 


A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION 285 


obstacles as possible in the way of those eager for 
an education. 

The Temple University is a laboratory, as it were, 
in which are tested out the educational demands of the 
community. These vary from year to year. It is 
impossible for more rigidly organized institutions to 
adjust themselves as quickly to these ever-changing 
community conditions as does the Temple University, 
which organizes a course in any subject whenever a 
sufficient number of students apply. A record is kept 
of all applications for any subject of instruction, and 
a class is formed as soon as the demand seems to war- 
rant it. The University thus meets definite educa- 
tional needs in a practical way, as it has from the 
beginning, when it undertook to meet the unsatisfied 
educational needs of the citizens of Pennsylvania. 

The establishment of the Law School, for instance, 
shows this adaptability to needs. On a warm summer 
day in 1894, two students called at the College office, 
and made inquiry as to a course in law at night. They 
were told that there was no law course and no law 
school in Philadelphia at that time open to students 
who were obliged to work during the day and study 
at night. They insisted upon being taught, and were 
told that it was the rule of the College not to begin 
any new course or to give any new branch until a class 
of at least six were assured; that if they desired a 
night course in law, they must first create the class by 
getting together other students anxious like themselves 
for a legal education. 

Nothing further was heard of the matter until early 
in 1895, when the would-be law students again walked 
into the Dean’s office and announced that they had 
secured the class and wished arrangements made for 
immediate instruction. The demand was at once met 


286 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


by the College authorities by the founding of a law 
school. 

The Law School is now one of the best in the city 
and graduates have been exceptionally successful in 
passing State Board examinations with the highest 
honors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states. 
Many of the graduates are now occupying positions of 
special prominence in the legal profession and on the 
judicial bench. 

But the University endeavors to supply any need 
of those earnestly seeking a broader life. It has many 
unique special courses and any one desiring to study 
some branch out of the ordinary would probably find 
it worth while to write Temple University for its 
catalogue. In addition, all the usual branches to be 
found in a university are fully covered. 

In fact, there are very few needs in the life of today 
that the Temple University does not meet. A child 
just able to walk can enter the kindergarten class in 
the day department and receive his entire schooling 
under the one roof, graduating with college degrees, 
taking special university courses, or fitting himself for 
business. The tuition fees are moderate, and the 
student pays for only what he takes. 

The work of the Temple University was well summed 
up when, at a large public banquet in Philadelphia, in 
answering to the toast, ‘‘ What Temple University has 
done for the Public School System of Philadelphia,”’ 
George Wheeler, Associate Superintendent of Schools, 
said that it has brought democracy into education, 
and opened the door of opportunity, so that no talent 
need go undeveloped for the lack of training. That 
has been the great motive from the start. | 

As the work has progressed, as broader and broader 
channels have opened by which its usefulness has 


A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION 287 


reached even greater numbers, a vision has dawned 
of even more splendid achievement. Before those 
who are working for the welfare of this university of 
the people is the hope of a great central institution 
with branches in various parts of the city near the 
homes of the workers. It is planned that the great 
system shall give freely to those who have little money 
or little time an education as broad and as thorough 
as can be had anywhere in the land; that by its aid 
any one, young or old, can acquire any knowledge he 
wishes either for pleasure or profit. 

In a word, it is hoped that the institution, which its 
builders trust to see eventually arise, shall bring to 
the toilers and to the poor of the world, all the wealth 
of knowledge that the world possesses. It is a vision 
of a great university with classrooms and laboratories 
and gymnasia and everything needed for the broaden- 
ing of men’s minds brought to the very doors of the 
people, that they may know more truly and use more 
wisely the great mystery, life. 

And those whose eyes are fixed upon the vision wish 
to see it become a reality, not only in the one city where 
it has already taken partial form, but in every town in 
the country where there are hearts hungering for 
knowledge and spirits eager to be loosed from the 
bonds of ignorance, 


CHAPTER XXX 
HELPING THE SIcK PooR 


The Samarntan, Garretson, and Greatheart Hospitals. 
Doctor Conwell Tells How the Samaritan Hospital 
Started. He Gives His Ideas of True Charity. 
The Umaque Beginning of Garretson Hospital. 
The Work vt Does at Present. 


torate, when a new church was being built and a 
university founded, another need began to make 
itself felt. 

His pastoral work among his church members and 
others of the neighborhood brought constantly to Doc- 
tor Conwell’s mind the needs of the sick poor. Scarcely 
a week passed that some one did not come to him for 
help for those who were ill and without means to secure 
proper medical aid. Accidents too—both among his 
membership and in the families of the neighborhood— 
were numerous. ‘There was no large, well-equipped 
hospital in the immediate vicinity, and the need of 
one in this section of the city began to be borne in 
upon him. And then—as in the case of the Univer- 
sity—the need was brought to him in immediate and 
specific form. 

Speaking of the manner in which the Samaritan Hos- 
pital came to be, Doctor Conwell says: ‘‘The Samar- 
itan Hospital, which has become one of the great 
agencies for the healing of the sick poor in the city of 
Philadelphia, has been one of those mysterious devel- 
opments which it is impossible to account for in the 


(288) 


| we: the busy days of Russell Conwell’s early pas- 


HELPING THE SICK POOR 289 


usual conditions of life. A young woman was seri- 
ously ill, with a very dangerous and somewhat infec- 
tious disease of the mouth. Her case was a very 
disagreeable and difficult one to care for in the home 
where she had lived as an orphan. The physician in 
charge suggested to me that the only reasonable way 
to care for the poor, afflicted woman was to hire two 
rooms in the upper story of some private house and 
put her in charge of a trained nurse. 

‘We rented two such rooms and that one patient 
and those two rooms were the beginning of the Samar- 
itan Hospital which now reaches so many thousands 
of the poor in the course of a year, because we soon 
hired the whole house. ‘Then we purchased it with a 
small payment down, furnished it with gifts from our 
congregation, and found young women who desired 
training in the actual practice of nursing. Soon we 
were overwhelmed with physicians who offered their 
services free in such work. 

‘“We were soon so crowded that we were encouraged 
to purchase the adjoining dwelling, which was on the 
corner of Broad and Ontario Streets, Philadelphia. 
That we also purchased with a small payment and held 
for some time on a large mortgage. Afterwards we 
purchased a large lot north on Broad Street and then 
a similar lot on Park Avenue, after which the State 
of Pennsylvania came forward with appropriations for 
the maintenance of the hospital in its efforts to care 
for the poor people of the state. 

“Then one building after another arose as if by 
magic. Money came in from unexpected quarters, 
which, with some special subscriptions on the part of 
those most interested in the hospital, made the insti- 
tution a permanent part of the humanitarian work of 
Philadelphia. Like all the other institutions, mis- 


290 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


sions and enterprises which our church undertook ‘to 
found or support, it started—as in the creation—with 
nothing; was ‘without form and void,’ and grew into 
something by a mysterious but powerful Providence 
which seemed to push us on with the work beyond 
our plans or highest hopes. Where the spirit of life is, 
something must grow.” 

In speaking of the hospital and its work, Doctor 
Conwell, at another time, said, ‘‘The hospital was 
founded, and this property purchased, in the hope that 
it would do Christ’s work. Not simply to heal for the 
sake of professional experience; not simply to cure 
disease and repair broken bones; but to so do those 
charitable acts as to enforce the truth Jesus taught, 
that God ‘would not that any should perish, but that 
all should come unto Him and live.’ Soul and body, 
both need the healing balm of Christianity. The hos- 
pital modestly and touchingly furnishes it to all 
classes, creeds and ages whose sufferings cause them 
to ery out, ‘Have mercy on me.’”’ 

The hospital was opened February 1, 1892. It did 
not take long, as Doctor Conwell said, to prove the 
need of the work. Before the end of that year it was 
so crowded that an addition had to be built; and now 
magnificent buildings stand adjoining the original 
house, as 2 monument to the untiring work and zeal 
of the members of Grace Baptist Church and their 
friends. 

The hospital is modern in every way. It numbers 
on its staff the best physicians of the city—many of 
them well-known specialists. It has a large number 
of free beds in pleasant wards; also some semi-private 
rooms and many private rooms. ‘The name ‘‘Samari- 
tan Hospital”? was given as typical of its work and 
spirit; for its projectors and supporters laid down 





THE SAMARITAN HOSPITAL 


ONE oF DR. CoNWELL’S GREATEST AMBITIONS WAS REALIZED IN THE COMPLETION OF THIS SPLENDID MopEerN HospirTau 





HELPING THE SICK POOR 04/201 


their money and agreed to pay whatever might be 
needed, as well as gave of their personal care and 
attention to the sufferer. The sick poor are never 
turned away if accommodations can possibly be pro- 
vided for them. Doctor Conwell, however, did not 
believe in indiscriminate charity, and if a patient can 
afford to pay, even a small sum, he is encouraged to do 
so. Doctor Conwell believed it would be wrong to 
treat such people free—an injustice to physicians as 
well as the encouragement of a wrong spirit in 
themselves. 

“Charity is composed of sympathy and self-sacri- 
fice,’ he said. ‘‘There is no charity without a union 
of these two. To make a gift become a charity the 
recipient must feel that it is given out of sympathy; 
that the donor has made a sacrifice to give it; that it 
is intended only as assistance and not as a permanent 
support, unless the needy one be helpless; and that 
it is not given as his right. To accomplish this end 
desired by charitable hearts demands an acquaint- 
ance with the persons to be assisted or a study of them, 
and a great degree of caution and patience. 

‘Tt is not only unnecessary but a positive wrong to 
give to itinerant beggars. ‘There is no such thing as 
charity about a so-called state charity. It is states- 
manship to rid the community of nuisances; to feed 
the poor and prevent stealing and robbery; but it 
should not be called a charity. The paupers take their 
provisions as their right; feel no gratitude; acquire 
no ambition, no industry and no culture. 

‘The state almshouse educates the brain and chills 
the heart. It fastens a stigma on the child that hinders 
and curses it for life. Any institution supported 
otherwise than by voluntary contribution, or in the 
hands of paid public officials, can never have the 


19 


292 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


spirit of charity, nor be correctly called a charity. 
Public charitable institutions, so-called, are not chari- 
ties at all; the motive is not sympathy, but necessity. 
The money for the support of paupers is not paid with 
benevolent intentions by the taxpayers, nor do the 
inmates of almshouses so receive it. I have been 
engaged in gathering statistics and have found sixty- 
three per cent of all persons who have applied for 
assistance at various institutions are impostors; and 
many are swindlers and: professional burglars.” 

This so-called spirit of charity is not found at Samar- 
itan Hospital; but there is a deep, true sympathy and 
desire to help. A spirit, also, that is quite notice- 
able is the homelike atmosphere that prevails. This 
may have come from the fact that the hospital started 
in an ordinary house and thus caught at the inception 
the home spirit which has never left it. And it may 
have come from the motive with which the work was 
taken up. But however it came to be, its homelike 
air is marked. ‘Though rules are strictly enforced— 
as they must be—there is a feeling of personal interest 
in each patient that makes the sick one feel that he is 
something more than a ‘‘case” or a number. 

“The lovely Christ spirit,” says Doctor Conwell, 
‘“‘which inclines men and women to care for their 
unfortunate fellowmen, is especially beautiful when, in 
addition to the healing of wounds and disease, the 
afflicted sufferers are welcomed to such a home as the 
Samaritan Hospital has become. All such kind deeds 
become doubly so when done in the name of Christ, 
because they carry with them sympathy for those in 
pain; love for the loveless; a home for the homeless; 
friendship for the friendless; and a divine solace which 
are often more than surgical skill or medical science. 

‘‘Such an institution the Samaritan Hospital is ever 


HELPING THE SICK POOR 293 


to be. It began in weakness and inexperience; but 
with Christian devotion and affection its founders and 
supporters have conquered innumerable difficulties, 
and can now say unreservedly that they have a hospital 
with all the conveniences and influences of a Christian 
home.” 

A feature that carries out this kindly spirit is the 
arrangement of the visiting hours. Doctor Conwell 
knew that the majority of the patients of Samaritan 
Hospital come from among the working classes, and 
that theirfriends were employed during the day and 
so could not call at the times usually set aside by hos- 
pitals for visitors. So he arranged visiting hours on 
Sunday afternoons and in the evenings. At the 
present time there is a visiting hour every day in the 
week, and on one evening. 

The Samaritan Hospital is non-sectarian. Suffer- 
ing and need are the only requisites for admission. 
The reports show that among those who are cared for 
are Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Epis- 
copalians, Presbyterians, Hebrews, members of the 
Society of Friends and of the Reformed Church, Con- 
eregationalists, Moravians, Mennonites, Unitarians, 
Universalists and members of the church of the Latter- 
Day Saints and of the United Brethren. 

The nativity of the patients shows that nearly all 
countries are represented. In one year were admitted, 
in addition to native-born Americans, one hundred 
and forty-five Germans, seventy-three English, one 
hundred and fifty-eight Russians, one hundred and 
seventeen sons and daughters of Ireland, ninety-two 
Italians, twenty-four Scotchmen, eleven Canadians, 
eleven Hungarians, twelve Poles, five Swiss, six French- 
men, nine Swedes, two Armenians, one Porto Rican, 
one native of Holland, four Greeks, twenty-two 


294 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Australians, five Norwegians, one Spaniard, eight 
Roumanians and two Indians. 

The Samaritan Hospital is not, however, the only 
hospital of which Doctor Conwell was the president, 
and which received his personal interest and atten- 
tion. When the Temple University purchased the 
property and assumed the administration of the 
Philadelphia Dental College the Garretson Hospital, 
which was started as an adjunct to the Philadelphia 
Dental College, was at the same time taken over. 

This hospital had rather a unique beginning. Just 
across the street from the building of the Philadelphia 
Dental College are the Baldwin Locomotive Works. 
Nearby are many other foundries and factories, and 
through this section run the tracks of the Philadelphia 
and Reading Railway. This district is one of the most 
important industrial centers of Philadelphia, and 
accidents are continually occurring. 

The nearest place for even a semblance of skilled 
medical help was the Philadelphia Dental College, and 
here the bruised and burned and maimed were taken. 
Professors and students did the best they could to 
bind up the injured and give relief, and frequently sent 
for physicians and nurses among their friends to help. 
Rooms in the Dental College were turned over for the 
use of these cases; and thus, what is now Garretson 
Hospital, came into existence. 

For about two years it occupied rooms in the Dental 
College and depended upon the generosity of the 
Dental College and its friends for the medical help and 
nursing required. But the accident cases increased 
and the quarters in the Dental College soon became 
inadequate. The necessity for a well-equipped hos- 
pital in that section became only too apparent. Then 
those already interested went to work. A state 


HELPING THE SICK POOR 295 


appropriation was secured, and in 1907 the present 
building was erected. At first the capacity was 
twenty-seven beds; but in 1911 the hospital was 
enlarged and its bed capacity increased. 

In regard to its work Doctor Conwell said: ‘It has 
assisted thousands of poor workmen and their fami- 
lies, and will go on through the ages to come, probably, 
as an increasing power for the amelioration of mankind. 
Just how it grew, it is impossible to state, as the 
influences which assisted in its upbuilding were as 
multifarious as those seem to be which surround the 
growth of a tree. It had a fertile soil; it had the 
seed idea, and the church, under God, gave it the sun- 
shine. Of course, like the Samaritan Hospital, it soon 
outgrew the corporate control of the church and 
became as completely non-sectarian as any institu- 
tion can be in a place where the spirit of Christ is ever 
leading people to prayer and to good deeds.”’ 

A further extension of the healing work is the Great-~ 
heart Hospital on Spring Garden Street near Eighteenth 
Street. Thus is furnished to this section a hospital 
group that meets all needs of the sick and suffering. 

Thus, through the founding of the Samaritan Hos- 
pital and the development of the Garretson and 
Greatheart Hospitals, Doctor Conwell and the faithful 
workers who gathered about him rendered in still 
another field an important service to the people of 
Philadelphia. These institutions are now independent 
organizations, supported and helped largely in the 
good work they are doing by the generously-inclined 
of the entire city. But the hospitals have grown into 
their present great usefulness because this earnest 
body of workers saw a need of humanity; were willing 
to shoulder the burden of supplying it; and labored 
and sacrificed to do so. 


CHAPTER XXxI 
SPREADING VISIONS 


How the Lecture ‘‘ Acres of Diamonds”? has Brought 
Fuller Life to Many. How it Helped a Salesman. 
How it has Bult up Towns. Its Voice Within 
Prison Walls. The Message it has for All. 


salesmen discussing the week’s business. Orders 

had been numerous and large. Commissions would 

amount to a good sum. They figured out their 
profits for the coming week, if business continued so 
good, and were in a highly satisfied state of mind. 

Across the aisle from them, three men were enthusi- 
astically talking about their business. ‘They owned a 
factory and were shipping stuff by the carload. They, 
too, were figuring their profits, and these also came to 
good round sums. ‘Their business was prosperous. 
They were delighted with what they were making and 
with the prospects for the future. The talk ran beyond 
their factory to investments in general, and how much 
one could ‘‘clean up” in stocks if he just “‘knew a thing 
or two.”’ Their whole thought ran moneyward. Their 
chief ambition in life, like that of the shoe salesmen, 
seemed to be to accumulate a bank account. 

In front of them sat Doctor Conwell on his way home 
from delivering his famous lecture, ‘‘Acres of Dia- 
monds.’’ He was tired from lecturing and traveling, 
for he had been speaking every night for a week, and 
traveling during the day to the next place on his 
itinerary. He had no fat commissions for his labor. 

(296) 


|: a train speeding toward Philadelphia sat two shoe 


SPREADING VISIONS 297 


He could not point to any factory, carloads of mate- 
rials, or to any bank account as the result of his efforts. 
He had, in fact, little that was tangible to show for 
what he had done. Compared with the business of 
these other men, he had simply been spreading visions; 
about as profitable, some might think, as making 
rainbows. 

Yet bis work was not without profit. As he had 
entered the car in which these men were discussing 
with such elation the amount of money they had made, 
a man had approached him with his face alight with 
gratitude and in a voice vibrant with feeling had told 
him how this lecture, years before, had started him on 
the path from the cheerless, narrow life of a poor 
farmer’s boy to his present happy, successful work as 
district attorney of a nearby large city. 

This man had scarcely passed on before a woman 
had stopped and said how much she had been helped 
years ago by the lecture and how her life had been 
directed into happiness and usefulness by oes Inspira- 
tion received from it. 

It is life substance, such as these two meals had made 
that is the profit of this lecture, rather than dollars 
and cents. To these two he had given a vision. To 
countless others he had done the same thing. In those 
towns in which he had just lectured, there were with- 
out doubt farmers’ boys who, because of this lecture, 
were already dreaming of larger lives and greater use- 
fulness than they had glimpsed before they heard it. 
There were clerks whose minds were more alert for busi- 
ness opportunities than they had been. ‘There were 
dressmakers’ assistants who were studying their work 
and its possibilities with new interest. There was, in 
a word, an awakening to new accomplishments and an 
added zest to life on the part of many, because of what 
they had heard. 


298 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


For this is the record of the lecture. If the life 
stories of all who had been helped could be gathered, 
they would make ready reading almost too incredible 
to believe. 

Writing of this aspect of Doctor Conwell’s work, a 
well-known public man of Evanston, Illinois, says, 
‘Have you or your friends tried to compute the enor- 
mous influence of that lecture in adding to the wealth of 
our country? I have seen so many vivid results, and 
have heard of so many, that it seems one of the great- 
est benefactions of our age. Hnormous is a conserva- 
tive word. So many villages have become cities 
directly in consequence of your lecture; so many indi- 
viduals and societies started ‘to do something’ for 
their town; so many manufacturing enterprises were 
begun by your hearers; so many rivers harnessed; 
so many banks established; so many schools and 
colleges opened; so many churches founded and others 
built; so many young men and women started into 
study; so many discouraged men began again; so 
many found great wealth in ‘their backyards;’ so many 
books written; so many charitable enterprises begun; 
so many orators sent on the platform; so many of 
our best teachers sent into schools; so many reforms 
made triumphant; indeed, so much good done by that 
lecture that I stand amazed at the accumulation.” 

From a Pennsylvania paper comes the following: 
“It was the lecture of Doctor Conwell on ‘Acres of 
Diamonds,’ delivered in Reynoldsville fifteen years 
ago, that inspired a group of Reynoldsville men to 
attempt the development of the clay and shale around 
Reynoldsville, and ultimately resulted in the founding 
of the Reynoldsville Brick and Tile Company, an 
industry that has operated continuously ever since 
and has become one of the leading industries of its 
kind in Western Pennsylvania. 


SPREADING VISIONS 299 


‘In substance, the theme of ‘Acres of Diamonds’ is 
that people listening to idle tales of ‘easy money’ to be 
had somewhere far away are apt to neglect the wealth 
that lies all around them awaiting development. After 
the lecture in Reynoldsville that night, Doctor John 
H. Murray and Professor G. W. Lenkerd walked home 
together and on the way down the street, Doctor Mur- 
ray first suggested putting into practice the teaching 
of Doctor Conwell, to look first at home for its hidden 
treasures. Local people had long talked of the possi- 
bilities of the clay fields near the town, but no one had 
the courage to proceed. That night these two gentle- 
men laid the tentative plans, and a few months later 
called a meeting of a dozen other progressive citizens 
in Doctor Murray’s office, and there was started the 
industry which has since brought so much good to 
Reynoldsville.” _ 

Doctor Conwell heard constantly of similar results 
from the lecture. While at dinner one day at his farm 
in Massachusetts, a telegram was brought to him which 
read, “Just sold my first sixteen hundred plum pud- 
dings.’ Someone asked what the telegram meant, 
and he said that some time before he had been dining 
with this man in Iowa and his host had said, ‘“‘I have 
heard your lecture for six years and I have yet to pick 
up my first diamond.” 

‘“‘| had just been served with some excellent plum 
pudding and I replied: ‘If I had a wife who could make 
as good a plum pudding as this, I wouldn’t look any 
further for my “Acres of Diamonds.”’ He took the 
hint,’ Doctor Conwell continued, ‘‘and, according to 
this wire, has just received an order from a big whole- 
sale grocery firm for sixteen hundred puddings.” 

In one Vermont town where he lectured, a young 
man—after a careful study of the products of the 


300 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


neighborhood—said he believed the lumber of that 
section was especially adapted to the making of coffins. 
A sum of $20,000 was raised, the water power harnessed, 
and a factory started. 

A man in Michigan who was on the verge of bank- 
ruptcy, having lost heavily in real estate, heard ‘‘ Acres 
of Diamonds’? and began—as the lecture advises— 
right at home to rebuild his fortunes. Instead of giving 
up, he went into the same business again, fought a 
plucky fight and is now president of the bank and a 
leading financier of the town. 

A poor farmer of Western Massachusetts, finding it 
impossible to make a living on his stony place, had 
made up his mind to move, and had advertised his 
farm for sale. He heard ‘Acres of Diamonds,” and 
took to heart its lesson ‘‘ Raise what the people about 
you need,” it said to him. He went into the small 
fruit business and is now a rich man. 

The man who invented the turn-out switch system 
for electric cars received his suggestion from ‘‘ Acres of 
Diamonds.” 

A baker once heard ‘‘ Acres of Diamonds,” conceived 
a plan for an improved oven and made thousands of 
dollars from it. 

A teacher in Montrose, Pennsylvania, was so 
impressed with the practical ideas in the now famous 
lecture that he determined to teach what his pupils 
most needed to know. Being in a farming district he 
added agricultural chemistry to their studies with 
such success that the next year he was elected principal 
of one of the Montrose schools, and shortly afterward 
was appointed superintendent of education and presi- 
dent of the State University of Ohio. 

In Clinton, Massachusetts, a young man just out of 
prison on probation heard the lecture and wrote Doctor 


SPREADING VISIONS 301 


Conwell the next day asking if he thought there was 
any chance for him, with the stigma of prison attached 
to him, to make a success of life. Doctor Conwell 
replied in his usual practical fashion, and further told 
the man to stay right at home and live down the dis- 
grace. The man acted upon the advice; became an 
honored member of the community and was a mem- 
ber of Congress for sixteen years. 

On the shores of Lake Michigan, a short distance 
from Chicago, a man and wife had about given up all 
hope of making the farm pay. They heard ‘Acres of 
Diamonds,’’ and the wife decided to make one more 
effort. The husband, however, was completely dis- 
couraged and would not make the attempt. He found 
work in Chicago but the wife, believing her ‘‘ Acres of 
Diamonds” were right there on the farm, clung to it. 
Today she counts, as her net profits from the farm, 
$2,000,000. She is an authority on stock raising; her 
cattle bring top-notch prices; and her certified milk is 
sold throughout Chicago and its suburbs. 

In a Maryland town in which Doctor Conwell was to 
lecture, a storm had blown the roof off the hall. The 
lecture was postponed and given the next day, which 
happened to be Sunday, in a church. The pastor of 
the church did not altogether approve of the proceed- 
ing. He felt that a lecture should not be given on 
Sunday, and purposely stayed away. Out of respect 
for his feelings Doctor Conwell made the lecture as 
much like a sermon as possible; though, as it is intended 
primarily to help people, he did not feel that it was 
irreligious. 

Doctor Conwell had been told that the church in 
which he was to lecture was badly in debt, and that the 
outlook for its existence was rather gloomy. In that 
part of the lecture where he tells how citizens may help 


302 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


a town, he pictured what the upbuilding of that church 
would mean to the community. He said that if fifty 
people would give a certain amount each, the church 
could be cleared of debt and go forward to do useful 
work in the community. ‘‘And then,” said Doctor 
Conwell, in speaking of the incident, ‘I had a feeling 
that I ought then and there to make an appeal for 
help. I did, with the result that forty-one out of the 
needed fifty pledges were made, and I learned afterward 
that the church was cleared of debt, enlarged, and is 
now one of the most successful in the town.”’ 

A man from Detroit writes: ‘‘On your last trip to 
Detroit I was present at your lecture, ‘Acres of Dia- 
monds,’ and, needless to say, 1 was greatly inspired by 
it, as were also some brother salesmen who accom- 
panied me. When my wife and I went home that 
evening we discussed the possibility of finding some 
‘sure enough’ diamonds here in Detroit. I am a sales- 
man for a well-known device for writing checks—such 
as your banks in Philadelphia use. Well, a few days 
after your lecture here, I was calling on a prospect in 
one of the office buildings, when it was suggested that 
I interview a certain professional man in that building. 
I called on this man and sold him one of our devices, 
whereupon he asked me why I didn’t eall on all the other 
men in town in the same line. I took a list of a few 
of these men and sold to most of them. 

“Then I began an investigation, the result of which 
is that there are something like 175,000 uncalled-on 
prospects—all high-grade men, and men who are 
making big incomes—just the very kind who need a 
device for the protection of their checks. I at once 
began to specialize on this class of prospects to the 
exclusion of all other work. This I did for over three 
months, meeting with such fine success that our com- 


SPREADING VISIONS 303 


pany recently has sent me out to the various large city 
offices to instruct our salesmen in selling to this new 
line of prospective customers. 

‘“A few weeks ago I visited your own city, where I 
found over five thousand professional men of the class 
mentioned, none of whom had ever been sold to, and 
I instructed the local men there how to approach and 
sell these men. We expect that two men will be kept 
busy on this line of work alone for many months right 
in Philadelphia, and that other salesmen all over the 
United States will be likewise engaged for the remainder 
of 1916; furthermore, we anticipate that the men 
engaged in this special work will earn in commissions 
$100,000. 

‘‘And your auditor of last fall is now going around 
the country translating your lecture into the terms of 
our business and showing our salesmen that truly there 
are ‘Acres of Diamonds’ in their own localities. I may 
say that, in giving my little talk to our selling organiza- 
tion, I mentioned that my own researches were inspired 
by your great lecture. As a matter of fact, I have 
taken the liberty of quoting from your wonderful lecture 
in my own little talk, which I call ‘Nuggets of Gold.’ 
Thus does your work go on. Of course, in all these 
years your mail has been filled with such letters of 
appreciation as this from all over the country, but I 
know that you will be glad to have this one additional 
message of thanks from me.” 

From Massachusetts Agricultural College comes the 
following: ‘‘I have just been reading the lecture, 
‘Acres of Diamonds,’ and would like to say that it 
has inspired me very much. I have heard you deliver 
the lecture two or three times, so that I can compre- 
hend its significance much more, and I want to thank 
you for the help it has given me and the help it will 
give me. 


304 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


‘Only the other day, in talking with my father about 
the lecture, he said that he had endeavored to live his 
life according to several of the things which you brought 
out in the lecture, and that he had obtained more help 
from that one lecture than from any other he had ever 
heard.” 

From Texas a young man writes: “During my 
college days I heard your wonderful lecture at Waco, 
Texas, and it has been my ideal and inspiration ever 
since. My heart moves me to say how deeply it has 
inspired me. I can never be the same, but a better 
and a more determined man. 

“Tonight I am planning and dreaming of larger 
usefulness, and shall tomorrow go forth with increased 
energy to minister to my noble congregation and to the 
world, because I have been fired by ‘ Acres of Diamonds.’ 
It has been my joyful experience to work for an educa- 
tion, and now I am the grateful pastor of a congrega- 
tion of five hundred people and just thirty-six years of 
age. If I ever reach a place of large usefulness, your 
life and lecture will have a big part in the inspiration 
that moves me onward and upward.” 

From a prison in California comes a letter which 
shows that the vision has reached even within prison 
walls, and is holding out a hope to one who has made 
a mistake in life, but desires to retrieve it: “‘I am taking 
this liberty to address you in regards to ‘Acres of 
Diamonds.’ I have heard so much about it and read 
so much about it, that I was glad to find your address 
in this issue of the Christian Endeavor World. 

‘‘As you will see, I am at present confined in the 
state prison at Folsom. For which no one is to blame 
but myself, as I had every opportunity in the world to 
keep away from places of this kind. However, expe- 
rience is a great teacher and I know I have learned my 


SPREADING VISIONS 305 


lesson. J am writing to ask if you would kindly send 
me a copy of the lecture, as I am very anxious to read 
it, and I hope it may help me to better usefulness when 
T get out.” 

A bank cashier of North Carolina, while attending 
the lecture, sat directly behind a lady who was wearing 
a very large hat. When, in the course of the lecture, 
Doctor Conwell said, ‘Your wealth is too near you; 
you are looking right over it,’’ the bank cashier leaned 
over to a friend and whispered, ‘‘My wealth must be 
in that hat.” <A little later on in the lecture, Doctor 
Conwell remarked, ‘‘Wherever there is a human need 
there is a great fortune.” The bank cashier was still 
studying the hat, not being able to see much else, and 
at this remark the idea of a better hatpin than the 
one the woman was using flashed upon him. The pin 
is now being manufactured and he was offered $55,000 
for the patent. 

A man in Ohio who has today, clear of all indebted- 
ness, factories valued at $700,000 was not worth a cent 
when he heard ‘‘ Acres of Diamonds.” He went from 
the lecture hall determined to find some diamonds right 
at home. His present business attests the success of 
his search. 

These are but a few of the thousands upon thousands 
of similar incidents. In every state in the Union and 
in many countries abroad are hundreds and hundreds of 
men and women whose lives have been directly affected 
by hearing ‘“‘ Acres of Diamonds.” Such results show 
it to be a lecture out of the ordinary. Rarely, if ever, 
has any other lecture produced such practical effects 
in such an almost incalculable number of instances. 

The lecture is the outcome of Doctor Conwell’s 
practical view of life. He followed his own motto, 
‘Supply a need.’”’ He saw all about him, in his news- 


306 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


paper and legal work in the early days, and later in his 
religious and educational activities, lives—especially 
those of the young—dwarfed, cramped, and not open- 
ing out in any degree to what they might be. He saw 
communities needing certain enterprises. He saw 
opportunities everywhere for undertakings that would 
mean much to the individual and to society. And so 
he supplied the inspiration and the vision that led from 
a narrow, unproductive life to largeness and richness. 

He supplied the practical suggestions that have 
brought development and modern comforts and enter- 
prise to towns and country throughout the length and 
breadth of the land. And he also himself demon- 
strated in this lecture what he preaches. In supplying 
this need he made a tremendous success—a success 
so far above financial returns, though these have been 
great, that they are not even considered. For its suc- 
cess has to do with the lives of men and women— 
countless thousands of them-——-who have been led to 
useful, happy careers and a fuller realization of life 
because of the vision of what they might do that was 
given to them by “‘Acres of Diamonds.”’ 


OAR PHB rAXxul 
Tue History or ‘Acres or DiamMonps” 


The First Time “ Acres of Diamonds” was Delivered. 
Its Present Great Popularity. What rt has Earned. 
The Number of Students Helped. Doctor Conwell 
Tells how He came to Give the Proceeds of the Lecture 
to Poor Students. Incidents of Lecture Trips. 


T is a far cry from the little Methodist church in 
Westfield, Massachusetts—where ‘‘Acres of Dia- 
monds” was first given to an audience of a few 
hundred in 1861—to the Academy of Music, Phila- 

delphia, packed from floor to roof with a brilliant 
gathering of thousands of the city’s representative men 
and women, at which time this lecture was given for 
the five thousandth time on Doctor Conwell’s seven- 
tieth birthday. 

Yet such has been the history of this lecture, which 
was delivered more than six thousand times; and in 
its published form it reached tens of thousands more. 
Little did the tall, lanky boy of nineteen who mounted 
the little platform of that church and spoke upon, 
‘Heroes at Home,’’ dream what was in store for him 
and the lecture he was giving. Little did he foresee 
how it would affect the lives of thousands upon thou- 
sands of people; nor the influence it would have upon 
the industries of this country. 

In this, more than half a century since the lecture 
was first given, it has been delivered on a globe-circling 
tour that has embraced all the large cities of the lead- 
ing foreign countries. It has been given in every state 

20 (307) 


308 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


in the Union—in large cities and in small cities. It 
has been delivered in the same town over and over 
again; and, in one city in Massachusetts, it has been 
repeated twenty-one times. 

The latest form of delivery of this popular lecture in 
keeping with the development of the times is by radio. 
By this method, literally thousands hear a single 
lecture, far more hearers than could be gathered into 
any one single auditorium. After one such radio 
lecture in Philadelphia, letters were received from 
Maine and other distant sections of the country saying 
the speaker had been distinctly heard. Thus, by this 
means, this helpful address is reaching greater and 
ereater numbers. 

Second only in uniqueness to the good it has done is 
the fact that every dollar made from it has been given 
away. ‘The total amount earned by this lecture for the 
last forty years has gone to the education of poor 
students. Although it has broadened and enriched 
the lives of those who have been inspired by it to do 
some special work; and has built mills and factories 
and foundries and towns, its greatest work has been 
the building of man. Of this aspect of its work the 
Hon. John Wanamaker in an address said: 

‘“Doctor Conwell is a great citizen who cannot be 
matched in this or any other state. How proud and 
thankful is Philadelphia to own him! He had the 
vision years ago, not of building buildings, but of 
building men—citizenship.”’ 

It is no inconsiderable sum that Doctor Conwell has 
thus laboriously earned and given away. Some one 
with a mathematical turn of mind has estimated what 
the proceeds from this lecture would be had Doctor 
Conwell kept the money for himself and invested it. 
The sum runs close to $8,000,000, Yet, until some 


HISTORY OF “ACRES OF DIAMONDS” 309 


one computed it, Doctor Conwell did not know how 
much he had distributed. As soon as his lecture fee 
was given him, he forwarded it to the student for whom 
that especial lecture was given, crossed the name off 
his list, and forgot it. Thus he had never formed an 
idea of the total amount given, until some one just 
from curiosity figured it out and told him. 

The number of young men helped is close to the ten 
thousand mark. ‘The money given means a year 
added to their life work. So, one might say ten thou- 
sand years of good purposeful work has been added to 
the present generation by the munificence of this one 
man who has labored day and night—in winter cold 
and summer heat—well into old age to do this work. 
This in itself is an unique fruitage for a single lecture. 
It is doubtful if any lecture ever given can point to a 
similar record. Speaking of it, an editorial writer in 
a Philadelphia newspaper says: 

‘““No man can reckon the indebtedness of Philadel- 
phia to this admirable citizen who might have been a 
plutocrat, but chose instead, for the sake of others, to 
reserve only a modest competency for himself out of all 
the vast accumulation. His satisfaction as he looks 
back over the course of his life must be keen, when he 
thinks of the gratitude he has earned, where others 
were content to earn and hoard mere dollars. This 
man’s golden treasury is reckoned in the bright. mint- 
age of ever-living gratitude for lives enabled to reach 
their fullest development of usefulness.” 

As this writer intimates, it is not figures that most 
forcefully tell what this help means in the life of the 
one receiving it. It is the actual life-stories of the 
men and women who have been aided that give the 
best picture. Now and then, one runs across these 


experiences. 


310 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


When it was known in a city of the Middle West that 
Doctor Conwell was to lecture there, the Congrega- 
tional minister of the town asked for the privilege of 
introducing him to the audience. He was so earnest 
in his request that the lecture committee felt he either 
must be a very old friend of Doctor Conwell’s, or that 
there must be some special reason for the request, and 
so granted it. 

When the time came for Doctor Conwell to be intro- 
duced, the man rose and told how he had been helped 
through college by the speaker of the evening, and 
what this had meant to him in his straightened cir- 
cumstances So deeply affected was he in recalling 
this help that had come to him at a critical time that 
he was unable to proceed and was compelled to leave 
the platform. 

At the close of another lecture in an Eastern state a 
young man came up and, with a face glowing with 
gratitude, said he was one of Doctor Conwell’s ‘‘boys;” 
that he had been helped through college by a lecture 
check; that he was now principal of the high school 
of the town and looking forward to greater achieve- 
ments in his field of work. 

Glimpses such as these into the lives of those who 
have been helped mean much more than figures in 
reckoning the good this lecture has done. And possi- 
bly every one of the ten thousand assisted could tell 
of some such pathetic struggle, or of a critical moment 
when the aid received meant all the difference between 
success and failure; between a bright, useful future, or 
an unfulfilled career. 

In a reminiscent mood one day Doctor Conwell told 
how he came to devote the proceeds of this and other 
lectures to helping students: ‘“‘I had been visiting the 
scenes of my owncollege days at Yale. As I stood in 


HISTORY OF “ACRES OF DIAMONDS” 311 


the room where I had lived in such poverty, as I went 
through the dining-room and kitchen of the house 
where, in the old days, I had to be on duty at four- 
thirty in the morning to help make everything ready; 
as I went through the college halls and classrooms 
where I had shunned my classmates because of my 
shabby, ragged clothes, I thought of those hard, bitter 
days of work and poverty; of the long, exhausting 
hours I was compelled to spend in working and strug- 
gling; of my humiliation and keen suffering of mind 
and spirit at my appearance and need, compared with 
the rich boys about me. 

‘“‘T traveled on to Boston, but the picture of those 
days and all I had suffered stayed with me. I went to 
Tremont Temple Church. No one was in it. In the 
twilight gloom of that great church and the stillness 
that reigned there, I knelt and vowed to give thence- 
forth the proceeds from my lectures to poor students, 
so that at least some of those struggling for an educa- 
tion might never know the suffering and humiliation 
I had endured.”’ 

Doctor Conwell’s mail was filled with requests for 
help. In one day recently he received eighty-three 
letters asking for assistance to get through college. 
‘“When I receive these letters,’’ he said, despondently, 
‘“T feel that what I do is of no use whatever. It is but 
a drop in the bucket. Where there is such tremendous 
need, what one person does seems scarcely to make any 
impression.” 

But this very demand shows how great is the need, 
and how eager are unknown thousands for an education. 
This same great thirst for knowledge is shown by the 
prompt response made to the opportunities offered 
by the Temple University. Some day, perhaps, the 
vision of Doctor Conwell for universities everywhere 


312 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


within the reach and means of the people will be 
realized. In a recent article upon Doctor Conwell’s 
work, a writer has said, ‘‘Doctor Conwell by the use 
of his lecture fund, and the conduct of his University, 
has given more than 91,000 young people a college 
education they could not otherwise have obtained.” 
These figures speak more eloquently than can pen or 
tongue of the vast army of young people in the United 
States eager for higher education. 

In passing it may be remarked that Doctor Con- 
well’s true insight into the desire for education on the 
part of many has been proved by another educational 
work which owes its inception to him. Upon a trip 
abroad, Doctor and Mrs. Conwell had as their guest 
Miss Sophia B. Packard. While the party were wait- 
ing in St. Peter’s for the music to begin, Doctor 
Conwell read a letter from a friend in Atlanta, Georgia, 
upon the need there for a school for young colored 
girls. When he finished the letter, he handed it to 
Miss Packard. Upon reading it, she said, “I would 
like to help in such a work.” Upon his return to 
America, Doctor Conwell sent Miss Packard to Atlanta 
to see if such a school would be advisable. Upon her 
favorable report, he secured the use of the government 
barracks, and thus the Spellman Academy for colored 
women was started. This is now one of the foremost 
institutions in the South for the education of women 
of the colored race and was recently endowed by 
Rockefeller. 

There is, however, a reverse side to the picture which 
the public does not see and of which, perhaps, those 
who have been helned do not often think. All of this 
work was not done—all of this money that was so gener- 
ously given away was not earned—without hard toil; 
without hardship, exposure, tiresome delays, annoy- 


HISTORY OF “ACRES OF DIAMONDS” 313 


ances, worry, and anxiety that many would not endure 
year in and year out, even for their own profit. 

One may in a moment of exaltation be burned at the 
stake, or suffer the “‘pangs of fiery darts” for an ideal. 
But to travel for sixty years on all kinds of railroads; 
to wait at little junctions for hours for trains; to endure 
by reason of mishaps indifferent accommodations and 
unpalatable food; to travel often for half a day with- 
out food and then—because of delay—to be compelled 
to go directly from the train to the lecture hall and 
there speak for two hours; to suffer all of these dis- 
comforts simply to benefit others requires fidelity to 
an ideal of a high order. 

These are common incidents of travel, as almost 
every one knows. All who have journeyed much have 
endured them; but when they are repeated in one’s 
experience, every year for more than sixty years, they 
become a trifle wearisome. It takes grim endurance 
and constancy to a high purpose to continue to suffer 
them. The anxiety to make connections is one of the 
most wearing of these experiences. Doctor Conwell 
had no time to waste, so he had to make as close con- 
nections as possible. 

Once, when lecturing in the West, his train was late 
and the one with which he was to connect had gone. 
The lecture he was to give was an important one, from 
the financial point of view, for the fee was five hundred 
dollars and it was already promised. He had no bank 
account to draw upon to make up for the loss. Besides, 
he never disappointed an audience if it was within human 
possibility to keep his engagement. 

- ‘With the aid of a porter for whom he had once done 
a kindness, he was able at last to find various railroad 
officials who interested themselves in his plight. It 
was discovered that a freight train was about to leave 


314 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


a freight yard for the town where he was to lecture, 
and he was given permission to travel on it. It was 
held until he could reach it and, with much switching 
and jolting, and not without some enjoyment of the 
company of the brakeman in the caboose, he finally 
reached his destination and delivered his lecture. 

At another time when he missed connection, a 
special train was made up for him. He rode on the 
engine, became interested in the fireman and eventually 
sent the man through college. He is now a judge in 
Arkansas. Upon one of these occasions, when he 
missed connections, he hired a team to take him to the 
town where he was to speak. He had to drive fast to 
be on time, and as he reached the lecture hall he hur- 
riedly leaped out, caught his foot in the reins, fell and 
broke his arm. But he did not cancel the lecture. 
He went into an anteroom, bound up the arm as best 
he could, and gave the address. 

Instead of missing connections, sometimes there was 
a long wait. Usually these waits were at some little 
junction where there is nothing but the station—the 
sort of place which, as some one has said, puts junk 
into junction. At one such station on one of his trips 
there was a long wait. A blizzard had piled snow- 
drifts all about. There was nothing to do but accept 
the carefully sectioned-off seats; the red-hot stove; 
the hermetically-sealed windows; and listen to the 
monotonous click of the telegraph instrument. 

The only place that promised anything in the way of 
supper was a grocery store a short distance down the 
track. Here a stew from canned oysters was secured, 
and an orange answered for dessert. The train was 
late. The destination was not reached until the audi- 
ence was already waiting and a dash was made from 
the station to the lecture platform. But upon the 


HISTORY OF “ACRES OF DIAMONDS” 315 


return trip, at the wait at this little junction, three 
men told Doctor Conwell of how they had been helped 
by this lecture in years gone by. One had heard of the 
lecture from his school teacher. He had become so 
interested that when it was to be given again, he and 
two other of the school boys had earned money to hire 
a team to go hear it. On their way home they decided 
they would make something of their lives. He had 
worked his way through college and was now a success- 
ful lawyer. ‘Such stories made the discomforts of the 
junction of small moment. 

Once, when traveling in the far Northwest when the 
temperature was ten below zero, the hotel at which 
Doctor Conwell stayed could provide no heat in his 
bedroom, and he was compelled to go to bed to keep 
warm. Even this procedure scarcely relieved the situa- 
tion. He was past seventy then, and a great sufferer 
from rheumatism. But there was a boy in a certain 
college counting on the fee from this lecture for part 
of his year’s expenses. There was also an audience to 
keep faith with. And so he spread his overcoat on the 
bed and reflected that under some conditions a certain 
kind of future punishment had its good points. 

Doctor Conwell was often interrupted by the ery 
of ‘‘Fire.” Twice his audience was compelled to 
leave. In each case he kept on speaking and pre- 
vented a panic. When all were out, he made his 
escape. 

Once in Colorado when making an address at an 
outdoor meeting the platform fell. A woman was 
severely hurt and was taken to the hospital. Doctor 
Conwell went to see her; inquired into her condition; 
talked with her; and heard something of her life and 
of her ambition to study. He put her name on his list 
to help from the proceeds of his lectures and she became 


316 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


eventually the president of a woman’s college in one 
of the Western states. 

At one time in the State of Washington, while wait- 
ing at midnight on a dark station piatform for a train, 
a man came up, said he had been present at the lecture 
that evening, and that he had heard it once before. 
It had made such an impression on him at that time, 
he said, that he had remembered it word for word. 
And then and there he began and—until stopped by 
the arrival of the train—recited ‘‘ Acres of Diamonds” 
with the gestures, the inflection, and the very tone of 
voice of Doctor Conwell himself. 

“Tt was uncanny,’ said Doctor Conwell, in speaking 
of the incident. ‘‘I seemed to be looking at my double. 
In the silence of that midnight hour, with that man 
striding up and down that dark platform, speaking in 
my voice, using my words and gestures, it seemed 
almost as if I had gone on to the other world and were 
looking back at some impersonation of myself that 
still lived. If I ever need an understudy,” he concluded 
with his hearty laugh, ‘‘V’ll know where to find an 
excellent one. But the experience, at the time, gave 
me a strange sensation.”’ 

Upon one occasion the lecture bureau made a mis- 
take and sent him to Northfield, Massachusetts, 
instead of to Northfield, Vermont. When he reached 
the Massachusetts town, he found that a man who was 
to have lectured there that night had not arrived. So 
Doctor Conwell took his place, and spoke to the 
assembled audience, though neither lecture nor speaker 
was what they expected. 

At one lecture the man who was to introduce him 
after a long preamble in which he stated how well he 
knew the speaker of the evening and how much good 
his life and work had done, presented Doctor Conwell 


HISTORY OF “ACRES OF DIAMONDS” 317 


to the audience as Doctor McConnell of Brooklyn. 
This is somewhat akin to the presentation once of 
Doctor David Starr Jordan as “Doctor David Jordan 
Starr,’ with a poetic reference to the evening sky. 

Not only were many of these lecture trips wearisome 
and full of hardship and exposure; but they are strenu- 
ous. On a recent trip to Pittsburgh, Doctor Conwell 
lectured twice on the way out; was accompanied by 
a magazine writer to whom he gave data on the train 
both going and coming; spoke twice in Pittsburgh on 
the night he arrived, because the audience overflowed 
the hall where he was to make his address and. he had 
to speak to the second gathering; left the next morning 
at five o’clock, though he had not retired until after 
midnight; came through to Philadelphia without 
stopping; rushed from Broad Street Station to the 
Market Street Ferry, barely making connections for 
a New Jersey town where he was to speak that night; 
reached there at six o’clock and lectured for more than 
two hours that evening. 

At another time Doctor Conwell lectured at Newark, 
New Jersey, until after twelve o’clock; took the eight 
o’clock train in the morning for Philadelphia, where he 
made the address at a meeting for sending a relief ship 
to Belgium; hurried from this gathering to a train for 
New York, where he met by arrangement a number of 
reporters and talked until six; then gave a lecture, and 
afterward read the proofs of a long article that was to 
appear the next day. 

Such days as these on Doctor Conwell’s lecture trips 
were numerous. Many people are helped by the lecture 
itself; and many others by the money earned. But 
these results were not accomplished without hard work, 
wearisome traveling, and often exposure and hardship. 


CHAPTER, XOXXTIT 
Tren MILLION HEARERS 


Unique Lecturing Places. Lecture Topics. Doctor 
Conwell Discusses Audiences, Tells How to Keep the 
Voice in Good Condition. Mentions the Best Ways 
to Study for Public Speaking and Speaks of Hs 
Early Efforts. What Others Say of His Lectures. 
His Chautauqua Work and What He Thinks of the 
Chautauqua Movement. 


in the course of his public utterances, spoke to ten 

million people. But extraordinary as is this feature 

of his lecture career, the places in which he spoke 
add an element no less unique. 

He spoke at the Taj Mahal in India to English 
soldiers. It was a strange setting for a lecture. The 
English soldiers were camped on the banks of the 
Jumna River. A platform was made for him on their 
camping ground and under a blazing Indian sun, to 
the lazy clashing of palm leaves and with this glorious 
temple like a jewel gleaming nearby, he gave ‘‘Acres 
of Diamonds.”’ 

Doctor Conwell spoke in the enclosure at Jerusalem 
where Solomon’s Temple once stood. He once lec- 
tured in the Garden of Gethsemane. He addressed a 
large gathering of American travelers in Jericho. He 
once spoke to the English colony at Hong Kong, 
China; and he gave “Acres of Diamonds” a number 
of times on shipboard. 

By special request he gave ‘‘Men of the Mountains” 

(318) 


[: has been roughly estimated that Doctor Conwell, 


TEN MILLION HEARERS 319 


before the King and Queen of Norway and a select 
audience gathered by invitation at the palace in 
Stockholm. 

Doctor Conwell has lectured in Shakespeare Theatre 
at Stratford-on-Avon; to Indians at one of the Indian 
schools in the West; to negroes at institutes in the 
South; and one of the oddest places in which he ever 
lectured was at a deaf and dumb institute where the 
lecture as he gave it was repeated by the teacher in 
the sign language to the audience. 

These lectures have not all been ‘‘Acres of Dia- 
monds,’’—this title much to Doctor Conwell’s amuse- 
ment being sometimes misprinted to read “Ace of 
Diamonds.” Kemarkable as has been the record of 
this lecture, it does not sum up Doctor Conwell’s 
success on the lecture platform. This is his best known 
and most popular lecture; but he was lecturing for 
more than fifty years. His subjects have covered a 
wide field of thought. 

Among his topics have been, ‘‘The Philosophy of 
History; ‘‘Men of the Mountains;”’ ‘‘The Old and 
the New England;’ ‘‘My Fallen Comrades;”’ ‘‘The 
Dust of Our Battlefields; ‘“‘Was it a Ghost Story?” 
“The Unfortunate Chinese;”’ ‘‘Three Scenes in Baby- 
lon;’ ‘Three Scenes From the Mount of Olives;” 
“The Curriculum of the Schools of the Prophets in 
Ancient Israel;’ ‘‘ Americans in Europe;’ ‘General 
Grant’s Empire;” ‘Princess Elizabeth; ‘Guides;” 
‘Success in Life;’”? ‘‘The Undiscovered; ‘‘The Silver 
Crown, or Born a King;”’ ‘‘ Heroism of a Private Life;”’ 
“The Jolly Earthquake;’ ‘“‘Heroes and Heroines;” 
‘Garibaldi, or the Power of Blind Faith;” ‘The 
Angels’ Lily;’ ‘The Life of Columbus;”’ ‘‘Five 
Million Dollars for the Face of the Moon;” “Henry 
Ward Beecher;’ ‘That Horrid Turk;”’ ‘Cuba’s 


320 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Appeal to the United States;” ‘‘Anita, the Feminine 
Torch;’’ and ‘Personal Glimpses of Celebrated Men 
and Women.” 

His later lecturing tours were confined to the United 
States; but in earlier years he spoke in England, 
Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, 
Egypt, the Holy Land, India, China and Japan. He 
was offered $39,000 for a six months’ engagement in 
Australia, and, at another time, $50,000 for two hundred 
lectures in Australia and England. 

Doctor Conwell began lecturing early. In fact, as 
a small child he was, as it was phrased at home, always 
‘““speaking a piece,’ or, as Doctor Conwell himself 
often described it, ‘‘discoursing to the cats and dogs 
and other objects, animate or inanimate, about the 
farm.’ Of these early efforts, he says: 

‘“My very earliest efforts in public speaking were to 
the roosters in the barnyard and the cat upon the 
hearth. I was often humiliated when a boy at work 
in the cornfield, to find myself suddenly surrounded 
by a delegation of neighbors, who a mile away had 
heard me calling and who were disgusted, often to 
profanity, when they found out that I was simply 
‘practicing my piece.’ 

‘“‘T cannot tell why I turned to declamation in the 
way I did. But I recall the fact that I was con- 
tinually addressing the cows, when bringing them home 
from the pasture, in terms of Ceesar, Shakespeare and 
William Cullen Bryant. My sister was extremely 
annoyed at my persistence in ‘speaking my piece’ and 
often slammed the door when she heard me delivering 
my imaginary orations in my room. I talked to the 
frogs in the pond; to the old horse at the pasture bars, 
and found a special delight when the teacher in the 
public school allowed me to speak at the close of the 
session.” 


TEN MILLION HEARERS 321 


From these early efforts Doctor Conwell graduated 
into the debating societies around home. ‘Then he 
went to Wilbraham and, as we have seen, took an 
important part in the debates of the Old Club there. 
All this was excellent practice for the public speaking 
that was to become such an important part of his 
life work. It was an illustration of that inner life 
force groping for that which was to be. What might 
be called Doctor Conwell’s first lecture, however, was 
given in 1859 when he began to sell the biography of 
John Brown. Of this work he says in an interview: 

‘My introduction to the lecture field was given when 
I was sixteen. When John Brown was hung in Virginia, 
James Redpath wrote a biography of Mr. Brown and 
persuaded my father to send me out to sell it by sub- 
scription. My first public lecture was given on the 
subject of his life. I spoke morning, afternoon and 
evening from school-house to school-house in that part 
of the state. It must have been a ridiculous exhibition 
of ‘Boy Oratory,’ but it did sell the book. Probably 
the deep feeling in the New England states over the 
‘martyrdom’ of John Brown had most to do with the 
kind reception of the ‘Boy Orator.’” This was 
followed by his speeches for enlistment. In referring 
to this work Doctor Conwell says: 

‘““When the war began I was continuously called 
upon to speak at war meetings held for the purpose 
of inducing men to enlist in the army. I recall one 
address, which I made at Westfield, Massachusetts, 
in 1860, where so many bouquets were sent up to me 
or thrown upon the platform, that the porter at the 
hotel brought them to my room in two clothes baskets. 
It is a wonder to me, indeed, that such events did not 
completely turn my head and destroy all hope of future 
successes. 


322 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


‘“‘But the fear of audiences, and the doubt as to my 
ability to speak again, successfully kept me ever in 
an humble condition of mind and robbed me of the 
great joy which many must feel, who are completely 
satisfied with their attainments. Governor Andrews 
of the state very soon heard of the ‘Boy Orator’ and 
invited me in a personal letter to attend several meet- 
ings in the city of Boston.” 

In 1860, when but seventeen years of age, Young 
Conwell gave a lecture on the “‘ Philosophy of History,” 
in which he tried to show that the Civil War was 
inevitable because of the events of the past fifty years. 
But his first attempt at real platform lecturing was 
made in Westfield, Massachusetts, in 1861, in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, when he was encouraged 
and introduced by the great temperance advocate, 
John B. Gough. 

The war, of course, interrupted his work on the 
lecture platform, but after his return to civilian life 
he again took up public speaking. In Minnesota, and 
later upon his return to Boston, the work continuously 
grew. In describing those early days on the lecture 
platform, Doctor Conwell says: 

‘“T lectured at first in churches and summer hotels, 
and often twice a day, but for a very small fee. Once 
I was paid with a smoked ham, and at another time 
with a preacher’s note for four dollars and fifty cents, 
which still remains unpaid. ‘The greatest income 
from any one lecture was an independent lecture in 
Baltimore, when the receipts were $1,751 above all 
expenses. The largest straight fee from a committee 
was five hundred dollars at the Mormon Tabernacle, 
Salt Lake City. One year a wealthy man in 
Burlington, Vermont, sent me to sixty-three different 
places, and paid the bill himself. The largest audience 


TEN MILLION HEARERS 323 


I ever had was in Madison Square Garden, New York, 
when upwards of fifteen thousand were present, and 
the next largest was in Salt Lake City, where there 
were twelve thousand present.’’ 

Doctor Conwell’s lectures, like his sermons, were 
full of practical help and good sense. They were 
profusely illustrated with anecdotes and stories that 
fastened the thought of his subject. He used no notes 
and gave his lectures little thought during the day. 
Indeed, often he did not know the subject until he 
heard the chairman announce it. 

If the lecture was new or one that he had not given 
for many years, he occasionally had a few notes or a 
brief outline before him. But usually he was so full of 
the subject, and pertinent ideas and illustrations so 
crowded his mind, that he was troubled with the wealth, 
rather than the dearth, of material. Doctor Conwell 
rarely gave a lecture twice alike. The main thought, of 
course, was the same. But new experiences suggested 
new illustrations; and so, no matter how many times 
one heard it, he always heard something new. ‘‘That’s 
the third time I’ve heard ‘Acres of Diamonds,’ ”’ said one 
delighted auditor, “‘and every time it grows better.” 

In fact, Doctor Conwell often gave “Acres of Dia- 
monds”’ in a course of three lectures, because he had so 
many illustrations to fit the topic that he could lecture 
three or four times on the subject without repetition. 
Speaking of a lecture he gave in England, a London 
newspaper says: 

“The man is weirdly like his native hills. You 
can hear the cascades and the trickling streams in his 
tone of voice. He has a strange, unconscious power 
of so modulating his voice as to suggest the roar of the 
tempest in rocky declivities, or the soft echo of music 
in distant valleys. The breezy freshness and natural 

21 


324. RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


suggestiveness of varied nature in its wild state was 
completely fascinating. He excelled in description, 
and the auditor could almost hear Niagara roll as he 
described it, and listened to catch the sound of sighing 
pines in his voice as he told of the Carolinas.” 

“The lecture was wonderful in clearness, powerful 
and eloquent in delivery,” said another London paper. 
“The speaker made the past a living present, and led 
the audience, unconscious of time, with him in his 
walks and talks with famous men. When engrossed 
in his lecture, his facial expression is a study. His 
countenance conveys more quickly than his words the 
thought he is elucidating; and when he refers to his 
Maker, his face takes on an expression indescribable 
for its purity. Heseems to hold the people, as children 
stare at brilliant and startling pictures.” 

‘It is useless to try to report Doctor Conwell’s 
lectures,” is the verdict of a Massachusetts paper. 
“They are unique. Unlike anything or any one else. 
Filled with good sense; brilliant with new suggestions; 
and inspiring always to noble life and deeds. They 
always please with their wit. The reader of his 
addresses does not know the full power of the man.”’ 

‘“His stories are always singularly adapted to the 
lecturer’s purpose. Each story is mirth-provoking. 
The audience chuckled, shook, swayed and roared with 
convulsions of laughter,’ reported a London daily 
paper. ‘‘He has been in the lecture field but few 
years, yet he has already made a place beside such men 
as Phillips, Beecher and Chapin.” 

“The only lecturer in America,”’ says a Philadelphia 
newspaper, ‘‘who can fill a hall in this city with three 
thousand people at a dollar a ticket.” 

‘He is the last of the galaxy of such men as 
Gough, Beecher, Chapin,’’ comments a national weekly. 


TEN MILLION HEARERS 320 


‘There are about ten real American lecturers on the 
American platform today, and Doctor Conwell is one 
of the ten and probably the most eminent.” 

Those who heard him speak, know how aptly these 
press comments described him. But those who never 
heard him may gather some idea of the impression 
he made by the following letter written by a gentle- 
man who attended the banquet given to President 
McKinley, at the G. A. R. Encampment in Philadel- 
phia, in 1899: 

“At the table with the President was Russell H. 
Conwell, and no one near me could tell me who he was. 
We mistook him for the new Secretary of War, until 
Secretary Root made his speech. There was a highly 
intelligent and remarkably representative audience 
of the nation gathered at this magnificent banquet and 
the hall was decorated regardless of cost. 

‘The addresses were especially good, and made by 
men specially before the nation. Yet all the evening, 
till after midnight, there were continuous interruptions 
and much noise of voices and dishes and waiters. 
Men at distant tables laughed aloud often. It was 
difficult to hear at best, as the acoustics were so bad. 
The speakers took it as a matter of course at such a 
‘continuous performance.’ Some of the Representa- 
tives must have thought they were at home in the 
House at Washington. Those present listened or not, 
as they chose. The great hall was quiet only when 
the President gave his address, and when Doctor 
Conwell spoke long after midnight. 

“When, about the last thing, Doctor Conwell was 
introduced by the chairman, no one heard his name 
because of the noise at the tables. ‘Two men asked me 
who he was. But not two minutes after he began, the 
place was still and men craned their necks to catch his 


326 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


words. I never saw anything so magical. I know 
you would have enjoyed it. Its effect was a great 
surprise—the revelers all worn; the people ready to 
go home; the waiters impatient; and the speech 
wholly extemporaneous. It was a triumph that did 
honor to American oratory at its best. The applause 
was decisive and deafening. I never heard of anything 
better done under such circumstances. 

“None of the morning papers that we could get 
on the train mentioned either Doctor Conwell or his 
great speech. Perhaps Conwell asked the reporters to 
suppress it. I don’t know as to that. But it was the 
first thing we looked for. Not aword. ‘There is no 
clue to account for that. Yet that is the peculiarity of 
this singular life—one of the most public—one of the 
most successful—yet one of the least discussed or 
written about. He was to us visitors the great feature 
of that banquet as a speaker, and yet he was wholly 
ignored by the press of his own city. 

“The United States Senator Penrose seemed only 
to know in a general way that Doctor Conwell was a 
great benefactor and a powerful citizen and preacher. 
Conwell isa study. I cogitated on him all day. Iwas 
told that he marched throughout the great parade in 
the rear rank of his G. A. R. Post. It is the strangest 
case of private life that I have ever heard mentioned. 
The Quakers will wake up resurrection day and find 
out that Doctor Conwell lived in Philadelphia. It is 
startling to think how measureless the influence of 
such a man is, in its effect on the world. Through 
forty years educating men; healing the sick; caring 
for children; then preaching to a great church; then 
lecturing in the great cities nearly every night; then 
_ writing biographies; and also an accessible counselor 
to such masses of young people!” 


TEN MILLION HEARERS 327 


So magnetic a speaker was naturally sensitive in 
regard to his audiences. ‘It makes a great difference 
to me,’ Doctor Conwell said once, ‘‘whether an 
audience is in sympathy with me or not. If I find 
an audience is cold, I try to imagine the audience I 
would like to have. But it is more difficult to lecture 
under such conditions. I am carrying a double load. 

“The only time I ever feel tired is after a lecture 
when the audience is unresponsive. <A good audience 
never tires me; indeed, if I go on the platform feeling 
tired, a good audience will make me forget it. A good 
audience sometimes causes me to forget my rheuma- 
tism, and that, too, when I have a savage attack, and 
walk in on crutches. When I face a large audience 
which seems to follow me in sympathy, I forget my 
rheumatism, and never am tired. 

“There is a belt of civilization running across the 
country from a point about at Philadelphia on the 
south and extending north to the international bound- 
ary. In that belt, I find my most responsive audiences. 
In that belt lies the largest number of modern homes 
and the largest number of educated persons. They 
seem to go along with me; they note every point, 
they are enthusiastic at times; and the hour and 
three-quarters of my lecture slip away almost without 
effort on my part. 

‘“Now in the South, the people are more conserva- 
tive. They are not so easily moved. But when they 
are awakened by a fact or illustration, they never 
forget it. They are slow to take hold, but when they 
do, they treasure it more than is done by those in the 
zone I have described.”’ 

Doctor Conwell was asked once if the great amount 
of public speaking he had done had brought on any of 
the various ailments to which public speakers fall 


328 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


victims. ‘No,’ he answered, “because I always 
speak in a natural voice. You may speak as loud as 
you please, if you use your natural voice. The moment 
you try elocution, your voice breaks. My voice is 
just as good today as ever it was, and this is due to my 
rule to never try elocutionary effects. 

‘“When I address very large audiences I find it nec- 
essary to speak very slowly. I followed this plan 
when I addressed the audience in the Mormon Taber- 
nacle in 1872, and I was heard as clearly as I am in 
this room. That is the only secret in public speaking. 
If one speaks naturally, he can be heard and he saves 
his voice. 

‘Oratory,’ Doctor Conwell went on, ‘“‘is the science 
of effective speech. There are many forms of oratory 
and many ways of persuading people, but anyone of 
them which proves effective for its purpose may be 
set down as an example of true oratory. After attend- 
ing some of the most famous schools of elocution in 
America, I came to the conclusion that, as a general 
rule, it is best to try under all circumstances ‘to be 
natural.’ 

‘‘It seems like a dream and very unreal that I have 
spoken to so many thousands of people in the half 
century and more in which I have been addressing the 
public. It was not unusual for me to address an 
audience one hundred nights in succession in halls of 
various sizes and often with poor ventilation, without 
detecting the slightest huskiness in my voice or losing 
an engagement on account of a cold. 

‘‘Elocution, like poetry, is worth the time devoted 
to its study, even for an extended period; but in ora- 
tory, it must be only a second nature and be wholly 
forgotten when in the act of public. speaking. When 
I listened to Henry Ward Beecher, Edward Everett, 


TEN MILLION HEARERS 329 


or Mrs. Livermore, I was convinced that the study of 
elocution was valuable as a training, but a hindrance 
in conscious practice. 

“The ideal school of oratory in the old days was 
established in the country schoolhouse in the winter 
evenings, when some of the citizens organized an 
evening lyceum for the purpose of holding regular 
debates. I was always timid and made the most fool- 
ish blunders, and yet some tyrannical spirit within me 
ever pushed me forward to say something upon the 
question whenever an opportunity was given me to do 
so. It was a strange, subconscious pressure which 
forced me to overcome a very decided feeling of diffi- 
dence in public, and shame for my failures. 

“Tf a had consulted my own desires or preferences, 
I would never have engaged in public speech, and 
even now I find it a hardship to address a new audience. 
My mother and father both felt that I was ‘called 
to the ministry’ in answer to their continual prayer, 
and I entered into the idea that some miraculous 
genius was pushing me to do the things I did not wish 
todo. But that debating society was the best possible 
training for public speaking that a boy could secure.” 

Doctor Conwell was one of the Chautauqua lec- 
turers from the inception of the Chautauqua move- 
ment, which grew out of the Methodist camp-meetings; 
and, as he had been a speaker at these camp-meetings, 
it was only natural that he was called upon to help in 
the development of this new work. He was associated 
with Bishop Vincent in the movement in the early 
days, and few seasons went by that he had not spoken 
somewhere at a Chautauqua gathering. For many 
years he had been one of the regular speakers. 
He started in June, and every day and sometimes 
twice a day he addressed Chautauqua audiences until 
the season closed late in August. 


330 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


“T consider the Chautauqua one of the greatest 
movements a civilized country has ever taken up,” 
said Doctor Conwell once, in speaking of what the 
Chautauqua is doing. ‘‘The program is entertaining 
enough to draw people’s attention and then educational 
enough to do much good. It is a great movement for 
the education of the people. It draws large audiences 
of country people right from the farms. 

“The practice of holding the meetings in tents works 
for good in two ways. ‘The tents are easily handled, 
and so expenses are kept down, and the admission fee 
is small. And being held in tents, at an almost nominal 
price, the country people look upon it as somewhat in 
the nature of a picnic, and everybody attends in simple 
dress and unconventional fashion. If it were a fashion- 
able affair, many who now attend and are benefited 
would stay away.” 

As can be seen, lecturing had been a large and impor- 
tant part of Doctor Conwell’s life-work. Many believe 
the service he has rendered his fellowmen through his 
lectures is greater than he has given through the 
church, the University and the hospitals. But, be 
this as it may, his record as a lecturer stands alone. 

When one considers the more than half century in 
which Doctor Conwell was lecturing; the millions 
who have heard him speak; the strange and faraway 
places in which he has spoken; the fact that he never 
gave a single lecture without the earnest desire to do 
somebody good; and the benefits to individual and 
communities that have resulted thereby; his is, indeed, 
a record unique in the history of the lecture platform. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 
Firry YEARS ON THE AMERICAN PLATFORM 


Doctor Conwell Discusses Lecturing as a Career 
and Gives Reminiscences from His Many Years’ 
Expervence. 


well says: “‘There comes to me a serious sense of 

loss and defeat as I think what might have been 

accomplished if I had more wisely chosen my occu- 
pation in my early years. Each person is born into this 
world with some chief characteristics which should be 
combined and strengthened in order that he may do his 
best work. There is always some one thing which a 
man or woman can do better than he can do anything 
else, and probably better than it can be done by any 
other person. 

‘‘Lecturing should have been my exclusive profession, 
for in that I have ever found my greatest joy, and in 
that I must have accomplished more than in any other 
enterprise of life. But, alas! how far short it has fallen 
from the idea which I set for it in my boyhood years, 
and how far below the standard which might have 
been fully maintained if I had not divided my attention 
from it. 

“The lecture platform is a great opportunity to give 
instruction and inspiration, and to me it has been the 
most joyful occupation of life. No man can exaggerate 
the great exultation of spirit which comes to a public 
speaker who has an important message to deliver and 
who is before a sympathetic audience; who loses him- 


(331) 


|: speaking of his work as a lecturer, Doctor Con- 


332 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


self in his topic and launches out fearlessly into the 
deep of declamation, invective, or entreaty. Like an 
aeroplane, he flies aloft over land and sea, above the 
clouds. Often, in the early hours of a public address, 
I would tremble and actually shiver in my opening 
sentences; sometimes striving to recite something 
which I had particularly learned—like one standing 
in chilly water and waiting for the delayed word to 
plunge in. 

‘But where on this earth can there be found a joy 
so deep as that absence of all consciousness of one’s 
selfi—that seeming to swim out into the spiritual realm, 
where nothing draws downward and every breeze is 
favoring one? Oh! those indescribable heights of expe- 
rience which sometimes come in the midst of a patriotic 
or religious address, when the speaker is almost uncon- 
scious of the excited audiences; when everything is 
transfigured with a strangely divine glory; and when 
the full current of the magnetism of the audience 
seemed to carry the speaker over the loftiest peaks with 
safety! Then he must feel as the prophets felt when 
they ‘lost themselves in the power of God.’ 

‘Public speakers do not often do their best. Neither 
are they sure that on every occasion they can do more 
than to lumber through their speeches and close with 
dull, hard argument, which may convince the mind 
but does not improve the soul. But the so-called 
‘afflatus’ of the ancient orators is within the reach 
of modern speakers on certain favorable occasions and 
there seems to be no joy equal to it. Without that 
inspiration, public speaking becomes a drudgery, both 
to the orator and to the audience. In my limited 
experience, which I do not regard as a trustworthy 
model, I have gotten a glimpse of what the great 
orators must have felt, when those like Demosthenes 


FIFTY YEARS ON THE PLATFORM 333 


and the greater Pitt were overcome by their emotions 
in the midst of their sublime flights of oratory. 

“Tt was my good fortune to hear Abraham Lincoln 
deliver his speech at the Cooper Institute, New York, 
when he threw aside his manuscript and, in the words 
of the reporter, ‘let himself go.’ The quick transition 
from the monotonous reader of manuscript—from the 
lawyer carefully presenting his words—into the pictur- 
ings of the inspired orator, whose imagination flung out 
its wings wide and soared far over the usual things of 
earth, was seemingly miraculous to the listeners. 

“Mr. Lincoln’s awkward form, long arms, rumpled 
hair, and thin body were completely hidden behind the 
imaginative figures, which transfigured the speaker in 
a gleam of oratorical glory, and which his great native 
talents brought forth. It was in those moments of 
supreme elevation that he convinced and persuaded 
that antagonistic audience to believe that the American 
flag should represent freedom in its best form for all 
races of men. The newspapers stated that Mr. Lincoln 
went to his room that night exhausted and silent, but 
filled with the indescribable satisfaction of having been 
for two hours in that region ‘where the souls of the 
highest dwell and where the minds enjoying the keenest 
wisdom, find rest in heavenly debate.’ 

“TLecturing and preaching have ever seemed to me 
to be such sacred things that I have been especially 
grateful to God that I have not been obliged to earn 
my living thereby. Ido not mean to say that it is dis- 
honorable or a matter for criticism, when men are 
obliged to earn their living by public speech. But it 
has been a blessing beyond all compare to feel that I 
can go up on the platform and say to the people what 
I felt it was most necessary to say, and to say it in my 
own way, free from all connection with wages, or 
money reward. 


334 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


‘“When committees have handed me the fee after a 
lecture in which I felt I had risen to the occasion, I have 
hesitated and felt the chill of the money, as though it 
were a profane thing to receive at that time any pay 
in money. It may be that it is a simple, personal 
eccentricity, but the highest place I have ever reached 
in life’s long work has been that of addressing a needy 
audience with all my soul; having no purpose or 
thought but the good which could be done at the time, 
if I kept true to the highest and best of my subject; 
and having no hope of financial reward for my labor. 
That was joy indescribable. 

‘‘But I learned, early in my experience, that many 
men judge of the importance of a man’s address by the 
amount he is paid for it; and I found that if I would 
retain my influence with those I wished to benefit, IL 
must continually insist upon an adequate return for 
the labor expended, although the fees did not go into 
my personal account. Henry Ward Beecher told me 
that the happiest hour he ever had upon the lecture 
platform was when he was speaking to raise a fund for 
the working girls of St. Louis, who had been injured 
at their trade, and that he had refused to go upon the 
platform unless the committee in charge would guar- 
antee to raise, that night, five thousand dollars before 
the meeting adjourned. He said that the notices of 
his address showed him how much more the people 
understood and appreciated what he said, when they 
found out that they must pay five thousand dollars 
for an address of an hour and a half. 

“Public speakers and ministers of the Gospel often 
defeat their own righteous ambitions by cheapening 
themselves under such circumstances and refusing to 
receive money, showing by their own estimate the value 
of their work, and destroying the influence of their own 


FIFTY YEARS ON THE PLATFORM 335 


teaching. An over-estimate of one’s value, which is 
perhaps the most dangerous thing, is, of course, a very 
foolish condition of mind and leads to sure defeat. The 
most of the sins of our world are sins of the extremists. 

“T often went before audiences in the first twenty 
years of my public speaking with a sense of my awk- 
wardness and an over-consciousness of my feet and 
hands, while being introduced; and in a misery of 
self-condemnation, thinking how absurd it was for me 
to thrust myself into a place so far beyond my talents 
and reputation. Often I could see by the smiles and 
whisperings of the audience that they expected nothing 
from me but dullness and crudities and sometimes 
people went out after my introduction and before I 
had fully begun my address. 

‘At such times there often came to me the deter- 
mination to fight, and my whole soul was aroused to its 
highest efforts by the sting and ridicule, and by the 
evident low estimate they had already made of my 
efforts. Then every muscle and nerve and all the 
latent energies of my soul were aroused until, like a 
flood, they swept me on into rushing torrents of expres- 
sion so much above my usual thinking, that when I 
read the shorthand reports, it was a very difficult thing 
to convince myself that they were my own words. 
Indeed, I have often delivered addresses, sermons and 
lectures, which, when read to me from the stenog- 
rapher’s notes, sounded utterly unlike myself; the 
forms of the sentences, the figures of speech; and the 
accurate statistics seemed altogether new to me, not 
being able to recall the excited speech. 

‘““Many times I have found a list of dates, figures, 
names and events in my addresses, which I was sure 
could not be correct, because I did not remember ever 
having read anything about those things, and felt that 


336 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


I had made a dreadful blunder in making such wild 
statements. But, afterwards, upon careful examina- 
tion, I found that every statement was fully correct. 
Indeed, the most correct quotations that I ever use 
are those which come to me in the midst of the excite- 
ment of public speaking. Poems and speeches, events 
of history and recent incidents which have passed from 
my ordinary memory, leap back into view in the midst 
of my speech and I state them without hesitation; but 
I could not possibly recall or recite them in the calm 
hours of ordinary life. 

‘“Many times I have been requested by the reporters, 
after an address is finished, to give them the words of 
some quotation, or the names of some individuals or 
countries, and am not able to recall the fact at all that 
I referred to such things on the platform. That is a 
somewhat rare experience. But it is mentioned as 
among the greatest joys of any professional work. 
One must have knowledge, skill and enthusiasm in 
order to do his best, and that is probably true of every 
profession. 

‘The great power of an audience over the speaker is 
seldom appreciated by the listener, and it seems impos- 
sible to make an audience understand how dependent 
their teacher or preacher is upon their approval or 
applause. I have often addressed an audience where 
there was absolute quietness and no demonstration of 
delight, and have felt the awful strain of being obliged to 
mentally or mesmerically lift that whole audience by 
an exercise of psychological strength; and when I 
retired from the platform I was too weak to walk alone. 
It was a fearful weakening effort; and the audience did 
not get the best things, nor receive the best impressions, 
because of the impossibility for me to lift them into 
enthusiastic attention, 


FIFTY YEARS ON THE PLATFORM 337 


‘Yet such audiences are very often composed of the 
most attentive and retentive people, and I have often 
afterward heard that such a speech was of greater use 
than many others which I had enjoyed. But it often 
happened that the next night I was before an entirely 
different audience of active minds and enterprising 
people, who applauded at every point wherever a tell- 
ing sentence was emphatically used. The whole con- 
dition was reversed for the audience then was lifting 
me, and I was carried along without effort. I could 
think clearly and speak easily, and found deep satis- 
faction in the hour I spent with them. 

‘‘T returned to the hotel from such an audience feeling 
refreshed and happy, and went to bed singing. Yet, 
for both audiences I had the same subject on which I 
had spoken thousands of times, and had tried to say it 
in the same way and as far as possible to use the same 
words. Reasonable applause is a necessary condition 
for bringing out the best that is in a public speaker. 
Great musicians seem to be more sensitive to its inspir- 
ing power than public speakers. 

‘“'The sense of responsibility is often a heavy burden 
to a public teacher, and I have found it difficult to 
carry, at times, especially where I had been over- 
advertised and over-estimated, and where I felt sure 
that I could not do all the wonderful things which had 
been proclaimed I would do. For the sole purpose in 
my heart was to do the people good; to leave them 
wiser or better than I found them; and anything which 
stood in the way of my accomplishing that practical 
end was disheartening and probably often resulted in 
disgraceful defeat. 

“It must have been a great disadvantage, after all, 
to the greater men or women of the lecture platform 
who, in the last fifty years, were brought to it as a 


338 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


matter of speculation, because people desired more to 
see them than they did to hear them. Men who had 
done great deeds in other fields—generals, authors, 
statesmen, adventurers, discoverers and artists, who 
were not dependent upon what they said or the value 
of their addresses for the ‘gate money’—must have 
often felt that the mere receipt of money at the box- 
office was not a worthy success. 

‘‘One who is entirely dependent upon the usefulness 
of his topic or the touching power of his words, and 
who has no advertised reputation to bring the audience 
except the merits of his own work, may have lesser 
crowds and shorter newspaper notices, but he will have 
the abiding satisfaction of doing good, and will separate 
his work from the flashy admiration of a thoughtless 
crowd. Yet I should say that the ideal public teacher 
should be one who has the entertaining power to draw 
all classes of people to his audience, and also possess 
the unchangeable purpose to so use the occasion as to 
leave permanent lessons, which will make the listeners 
feel afterwards that it was a profitable way of spending 
their time. People do not expect an entertainment 
or a circus when a public speaker is introduced, but it 
is reasonable that they should expect to be kept awake. 

‘The great orators whom I have met from time to 
time upon the lecture circuit have presented a great 
variety of ideas and manners. Some have expressed 
the deepest thoughts and the mightiest topics in so dull 
and monotonous a manner as to make the performance 
a burlesque instead of a solemn discussion. Others 
have treated great and sacred subjects with such flip- 
pancy and with so much slang as to disgust the audience 
and make their friends heartily ashamed. Some have 
sought exclusively to entertain the audience with 
stories or exhibitions of mental pyrotechnics or absurd- 


FIFTY YEARS ON THE PLATFORM 339 


ities, which did furnish entertainment to the audience, 
but which have left no permanent impression of value 
on the daily experiences of life. 

‘“‘Others have so combined the attractive things of 
recreation and entertainment with the high purpose 
to uplift and instruct, that the listeners forgot the 
speaker in the speech and went away, thinking seriously 
and smiling happily. The number of such orators is 
very few; but in the long run they win their way to the 
esteem and affection of the listeners. I have often 
wished that I had so begun my steady practice and so 
followed my early ambition that I might have been 
accounted among the latter. 

“Ah, well! For us all some sweet hope lies, 
Deeply hidden from human eyes; 


And, in the Hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away.” 


CHAPTER XXXV 
Doctor CoNWELL AS A WRITER 


His Biographical Work. Lives of the Presidents. 
How He Wrote His Successful Life of Spurgeon. 
Books that Have Helped Him. Hvis Favorite Authors 
and Characters. 


RITING played no inconsiderable part in 

\ K / the work of Doctor Conwell, and, in his earlier 

life, it was often his sole means of support. 

Both in Minneapolis and in Boston he earned 
his living by newspaper work until he secured a foot- 
hold in law and business. And even then he did not 
give up his writing entirely. Long before he reached 
success in the legal profession, on the lecture platform, 
or in the ministry, he was widely known as a writer; 
his articles in the New York Tribune and the Boston 
Traveller, and his special contributions to other papers 
and magazines having made his name familiar to the 
reading public of the country. 

Had Doctor Conwell chosen literature for his pro- 
fession, he would undoubtedly have become one of the 
notable and influential writers of his day. The same 
vivid power of description that made his lectures and 
other public addresses so interesting characterized his 
pen. He holds his readers quite as surely as he held 
his hearers, and in his very earliest writings this quality 
was marked. His ‘‘Letters from the Battlefields”’ 
were commented upon all over the country for their 
realistic descriptions. His style is simple, direct, vivid. 
It grips the reader; carries him along with unflagging 

(340) 


DOCTOR CONWELL AS A WRITER 341 


interest; and leaves him with a good, clear, mental 
picture of the subject, and with its point driven home 
in such a way that it is not easily forgotten. 

Doctor Conwell said that writing, as a career, was 
not active enough for him; that he never thought of 
it seriously as a life work, but only as an emergency 
measure. Notwithstanding this fact, he has done 
much. His chief writing has been biographical. He 
began this in connection with John C. Abbott, whom 
he met through Henry Ward Beecher. He collaborated 
with Abbott on the ‘‘Lives of the Presidents,” and, 
after Abbott’s death, continued the work alone. 

Of his work as a biographical writer, Charles A. 
Dana, the famous editor of the New York Sun, in a 
letter to Harper Brothers, recommending that Doctor 
Conwell be secured to write a series of books for an 
‘‘American Biographical Library,”’ says: 

‘““As a writer of biographies, Doctor Conwell has 
no superior. Indeed, I can say considerately, that he 
is one of America’s greatest men. He never advertises 
himself; never saves a newspaper clipping concerning 
himself; never keeps a sermon of his own; and will 
not seek applause. You must go after him if you want 
him. He will not apply to you. He has written many 
books and has addressed more people than any other 
living man. To do this without writing or dictating 
a line to advertise himself is nothing else than the 
victory of a great genius. He isa gem worth your seek- 
ing, valuable anywhere. I say again that I regard 
Russell H. Conwell, of Philadelphia, as America’s 
greatest man in the best form. I cannot do your work; 
he can.” 

Many of the biographies which Doctor Conwell 
wrote were the lives of political candidates for the 
presidency. After the Republican party had nom- 


342 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


inated its candidates, they usually. sought Doctor 
Conwell to write a biography for campaign purposes. 
These biographies were generally penned quickly and 
had a large sale. 

In this way Doctor Conwell wrote biographies of 
General U. S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James 
A. Garfield and James G. Blaine. But even though 
writing these biographies rapidly and seemingly for 
so ephemeral a life as a presidential campaign, he 
endeavored to put into each some underlying purpose. 
He has said, for instance, that in the life of Garfield he 
tried to show how it is possible for a fatherless boy, 
without means or influence, to fight his way upward to 
positions of usefulness and honor. In later years, 
many men have told him that his life of Garfield 
showed them what they could do, and they started 
and did it. 

Russell Conwell’s most successful early biography 
was his ‘‘ Life of Charles H. Spurgeon.’’ He had known 
Spurgeon; had interviewed him; and had written out 
his sermons. So, when the great preacher died, a 
publishing company immediately wired Doctor Con- 
well for a biography. The offer came at a time when 
he was in the very heaviest work of the church and 
University. He did not see at first how any time 
could be spared for extraneous matter such as this. 
But the publisher was insistent—and _ incidentally 
there was a little mission of Grace Baptist Church that 
needed money. 

Doctor Conwell finally sent an affirmative reply; 
started on a lecturing trip on which he was to speak 
every night; took his secretary with him, and dictated 
the book on the train during the day. The book was 
finished within two weeks and had a sale of 125,000 
copies in four months. All the royalties were given to 


DOCTOR CONWELL AS A WRITER 343 


the mission which is today one of the successful 
churches in Philadelphia. It may be interesting to 
know, also, that in one month twenty-nine letters were 
received from young men who had decided to go into 
the ministry as a result of reading the book. 

His biography of Blaine was written almost as rap- 
idly. In three weeks the book was completed. His 
life of Bayard Taylor was written in the same rapid 
fashion. Russell Conwell had traveled with Taylor 
through Europe; had long been an intimate friend, 
and was therefore particularly well fitted for the work. 
The book was begun after Taylor’s death December 
19, 1878, in Germany, and completed before the body 
arrived in America. Five thousand copies were sold 
before the funeral. 

His latest and perhaps best known biography is the 
‘Life of John Wanamaker.’?’ Mr. Wanamaker left 
the request that Doctor Conwell write his biography, 
and so, though the task seemed a herculean one in 
addition to the many burdens of church and university 
and hospital work that he was carrying, he took up his 
pen, when past eighty, to write the career of Phila- 
delphia’s great merchant. 

The list of books from Doctor Conwell’s pen, how- 
ever, includes many works besides biographies. He 
has written: ‘‘Lessons of Travel;’’ ‘‘Why and How 
the Chinese Emigrate;” ‘‘Nature’s Aristocracy;” 
“History of the Great Fire in Boston;” “Woman and 
the Law;”’ ‘‘History of the Great Fire in St. John’s;”’ 
“Little Bo;” “Joshua Gianavello;” ‘‘Gleams of 
Grace;” “The New Day;” ‘‘Unused Power;” 
“Observation: Every Man His Own University;” 
“What You Can Do with Your Will Power;” 
“Effective Prayer;” ‘‘Why Lincoln Laughed;” ‘‘Every 
Man’s University.”’ 


3044 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Doctor Conwell has been himself much written 
about. Early in his work, William C. Higgins brought 
out, “Scaling the Eagle’s Nest.” This has been 
followed by ‘‘The Life of Russel H. Conwell” by 
Albert Hatcher Smith, ‘‘The Modern Temple and 
Templars’? by Robert J. Burdette, and an interesting 
and forceful account of the man and his many activities 
by Robert Shackleton. 

Doctor Conwell’s pen was virile to the last. From 
his ripened experience, he could say much that would 
be helpful as well as intensely interesting. But the 
great burdens which he carried in connection with the 
church, the University, the hospitals, the Chautauqua 
lectures that filled his summers and the many lecture 
engagements that crowded his winters, left little time 
for writing. Requests constantly came from editors 
and publishers, but it was only occasionally that he 
found time to comply. 

Russell Conwell was always a lover of books and 
of the best literature. To him books were the voices 
of the great men and women of all ages telling him 
their inmost thoughts. In his early life he eagerly 
read and re-read the few volumes which the home 
possessed and such as could be borrowed from neigh- 
bors. Moore was his favorite poet, with Milton a 
close second. He knew the works of these two by heart 
from constant reading, and could repeat page after page 
of their poetry. 

Of those times he says: “It was the day of few books, 
and I do not know but that it is better than having so 
many. In my boyhood we read thoroughly what we 
didread. In those days, Bunyan’s “ Pilgrim’s Progress” 
and the Bible were read, as it is doubtful if they are 
today.” 

Biographies were also favorite reading in those early 


DOCTOR CONWELL AS A WRITER 345 


days. The biography of Amos Lawrence and of Lord 
Cobden were two that greatly influenced him. Samuel 
Smiles’ ‘‘Self Help” and Mathews’ ‘Getting on in 
Life’ also had a potent effect upon him. 

The influence of this early reading is shown in the 
library which he collected. A large bookcase is 
given entirely to poems, and the old favorites are 
prominent—Alice and Phoebe Cary,! Whittier, Milton, 
Lowell, Dante, Tennyson and such writers. The only 
modern one is Noyes. Biographies and books of a 
biographical nature are perhaps most numerous. The 
lives of the men and women of the Bible by many 
authors and from many viewpoints fill shelf after shelf. 
One sees in this the influence of those Bible stories 
which were read to him as a child by his mother. It 
would seem almost as if there could be little that has 
been written on the famous characters of the Bible 
that he did not possess. 

There are also in abundance the “‘ Lives and Letters”’ 
of various famous men and women, and many books 
on character building in general. Life, as expressed 
by the individual man and woman, seemed to be Doctor 
Conwell’s favorite subject. ‘There is also much history 
—life in the aggregate, in great movements—and books 
on church history and church work. A volume of the 
Koran gives an interesting sidelight on the sweep of 
his reading. 

Shakespeare was Doctor Conwell’s chosen author; 
and his favorite characters in literature were Little Eva 
and Rebecca in fiction, Godfrey in poetry, Kossuth in 
history, Hamlet in drama, and Cicero in oratory. 
There are, of course, many books on theology and vari- 
ous doctrinal points and a scattering of general liter- 
ature. But there is almost an absence of fiction. 
Real life—life as it has been lived by men and women 


346 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


who have done worth-while things—was what sur- 
rounded him when he had time to sit in his study and 
let his eyes rest upon the shelves that line its walls from 
floor to ceiling. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 
MARGINALIA 


A Favorite Motto. Home Infe. Family Bereave- 
ment. Public Honors. 


accomplishing the quantity of work that he 

has done by the observance of a rule adopted 

early in life. This is his Do-It-Now motto. 
In speaking of it, he says: 

‘Early in life I heard of Gladstone’s ‘Do-It-Now 
Club.’ The club consisted of seven members. I made 
that idea the rule of my life, and it has succeeded 
wonderfully. While conversing with George W. Childs, 
in a Philadelphia newspaper office, he told me that he 
also had heard of Gladstone’s club. Mr. Childs formed 
a Do-It-Now club, which included in its membership 
Anthony J. Drexel, a president of one of our great rail- 
roads, and four others. 

“For thirty years Mr. Childs and his associates 
maintained a regular correspondence, keeping alive 
the do-it-now idea and imparting to one another the 
success of this principle. I do the next thing and I do 
it promptly. If I decide that a certain course is right, 
I act at once. I do not put it off until tomorrow or 
the next hour.” 

Whether the thing to be done is little or big; whether 
it is important or a mere trifle; Doctor Conwell inflex- 
ibly followed this rule. Thus odds and ends of work 
did not pile up on him. Everything was cleared away 
as soon as it presented itself. Thus many things were 
done which otherwise would not be accomplished. 

(347) 


] ) sccoms CONWELL was greatly helped in 


348 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


The tremendous activity of Doctor Conwell’s days . 
left him little time for the enjoyment of home life. 
He is a lover of family life, but duties pressed so relent- 
lessly that he had to relinquish to a large extent the. 
pleasure that most men find in their homes. He said 
regretfully once to a friend: ‘‘I scarcely ever have time 
to pass an evening with my family or to read a book 
with them.” 

Even Russell Conwell’s hours at home were filled with 
callers, telephone messages and secretarial work. In 
all this pressure of business Mrs. Conwell, until her 
death, stood ably by him. She was constant in her 
thoughtfulness and care; and her unselfish attention 
to many of the details of life gave him greater freedom 
for his public duties. She as cheerfully sacrificed as he. 

Once, when the defalcation of a trusted official threat- 
ened to precipitate a disastrous crisis in the financial 
affairs of the Temple University, she unhesitatingly 
gave all that she possessed, and willingly consented to 
Doctor Conwell mortgaging and selling all that he 
owned, in order to make the payments that would tide 
the University over the emergency. She knew it 
meant that, if anything happened to Doctor Conwell, 
she would be left practically penniless; but she did 
not flinch. <A writer in one of the country’s leading 
magazines, in a series of articles on ‘‘ Wives of Famous 
Pastors,” said of Mrs. Conwell: 

“Mrs. Conwell finds her greatest happiness in her 
husband’s work, and gives him always her sympathy 
and devotion. She passes many hours at work by his 
side when he is unable to notice her by word or look. 
She knows he delights in her presence, for he often says 
when writing, ‘I can do better if you remain.’ Her 
whole life is wrapped up in the work of The Temple 
and all those multitudinous enterprises connected with 
that most successful of churches. 


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MRS. SARAH F. CONWELL 


Seconp Wire or Dr. Conwetit. SHE Was Miss SARAH 
SANBORN OF NEWTON CENTRE, MASSACHUSETTS 


MARGINALIA 349 


‘She makes an ideal wife for a pastor whose work 
is varied and whose time is as interrupted as are Doctor 
Conwell’s work and time. On her husband’s lecture 
tours, she looks well after his comforts, seeing to those 
things which a busy and earnest man is almost sure to 
overlook and neglect. In all things he finds her his 
helpmeet and caretaker.” 

Mrs. Conwell passed away in 1910, leaving a void not 
only in Doctor Conwell’s life and home but in the 
church activities and in a wide circle of admirers and 
friends. | 

Another bereavement had already saddened. these 
later years of Doctor Conwell’s life. His daughter, 
Agnes, the only child by his second marriage, passed 
away in 1901, in her twenty-sixth year. She was a 
remarkably bright and gifted girl; clever with her pen; 
charming in her personality; an enthusiastic and suc- 
cessful worker in the many interests of the church, 
college and hospital; and her death was a sad loss 
to her family and friends. 

Doctor Conwell has a warm place in the affections 
of Philadelphians. Twice has the city given itself 
over to demonstrations in his honor. In 1894, upon 
his return from a trip to Europe, whither he had gone 
for his health, a public reception was given him by the 
citizens. It was held in the Pennsylvania Academy 
of Fine Arts, the Mayor being chairman of the com- 
mittee in charge. For hours the people passed in 
steady procession, welcoming him back and expressing 
appreciation for the work he had done in Philadelphia. 

In 1913, a still greater demonstration was made in 
recognition of his achievements in educational and 
religious circles and on the lecture platform. A com- 
mittee composed of the most prominent citizens of 
Philadelphia, with Hon. John Wanamaker as chairman, 


350 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


and with an honorary committee consisting of the 
Secretary of State, the Governors of Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Delaware, Texas, 
Connecticut, Wyoming and Michigan, had the cele- 
bration in charge. The whole city, so far as it could 
do so, participated. Telegrams and congratulations 
were received from the President of the United States 
and other prominent men and women of the country. 

‘Seldom is a man so highly honored in life,” said a 
Philadelphia newspaper in describing the event, “‘as 
was Dr. Russell H. Conwell last night, when he was 
escorted through cheering throngs down Broad Street 
from his home to the Academy of Music. It was a 
wonderful tribute to the man so often called ‘Phila- 
delphia’s foremost citizen,’ the world-known author, 
lecturer and philanthropist. 

“The city’s most eminent men and women—persons 
in all walks of life and of all creeds—honored Doctor 
Conwell. The commonwealth honored him. So, at 
least by proxy, did the Secretary of State of the United 
States and the Governors of many states.” 

Upon this occasion he was presented by the District 
Attorney, acting for the Governor of Pennsylvania, 
with the freedom of the state. This took the form of a 
golden key in a box of cedar of Lebanon, the box being 
appropriately engraved. 

In 1915 another public recognition came to him in 
honor of the work he had done. The Governor of Penn- 
sylvania was invited by a committee of the Panama- 
Pacific Exposition at San Francisco to select a man 
eminent in the life of Pennsylvania, upon whom the 
Exposition could confer an honor. Governor Brum- 
baugh—not wishing to take upon himself the responsi- 
bility of making a choice—asked for an expression of 
the people themselves through the newspapers. Doctor 


MARGINALIA 351 


Conwell was one of the three distinguished men 
selected. 

In 1923, a still further high honor came. He was 
selected as the recipient of the Philadelphia Award 
founded in 1921 by Mr. Edward W. Bok, known 
internationally as the editor of The Ladies’ Home 
Journal. It consists of ten thousand dollars, a hand- 
some gold medal in a beautiful casket, and a parch- 
ment scroll which reads, 

WHEREAS, The Founder Believes that Service to 
Others tends to fill Life with Joy and renders whole 
Communities prosperous and that The Ideal of 
Service as a test of good Citizenship Should be’ kept 
constantly before the minds of the People of Phila- 
delphia in general and of the Young in particular, and 
further believes that this may in some measure be 
accomplished through the making—under proper con- 
ditions—of an Annual AWARD in recognition of some 
SERVICE rendered by a PHILADELPHIAN which 
shall have redounded to the GOOD of THE CITY. 
The 

PHILADELPHIA AWARD 
founded in 1921, is herewith made, for the Year of 
1922, to 

RUSSELL H. CONWELL 

Teacher, Preacher and Servant of his Fellowman. 

The presentation took place in the Academy of 
Music, March 7, 1923. The week following was 
known as Conwell Week and many honors were paid 
Doctor Conwell by civic bodies and business fraternities. 

It all seemed a fitting tribute for what Doctor 
Conwell had done for the city. For almost a half 
century, he had toiled unremittingly without personal 
harvest. But the harvest had come, a bountiful one 
from both appreciative and grateful hearts. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 
THe MESSAGE OF A LIFE 


The Secret of Doctor Conwell’s Success. He 
Emphasizes the Power of Right Thinking and Tells 
How to Use It Intelligently. The Development of 
Personality—a Process of Education. Doctor Con- 
well’s Search for Knowledge and How He Found It. 
What True Living is. In Tune with the Infinite. 
Doctor Conwell’s Life—a Mighty Inspiration to 
Everybody. 


’ YHAT everyone is the better for seeing,” 
says an English writer, ‘‘is how life has 
been actually handled, freshly and dis- 
tinctly, by some one in a commonplace 
milieu.”? What more commonplace milieu than the 
environment to which Russell H. Conwell was born— 
the home of a poor farmer among the unfertile hills of 
New England? 

As we have seen, he had no money. He had no 
influence and there were no opportunities for develop- 
ment. The possibility for his life to reach out beyond 
the boundaries of his home and this farm seemed as 
hopeless as it does to many a boy and girl similarly 
situated. But it did reach out. It blossomed and 
fruited richly. And the cheering message it sends 
forth is that everyone’s life can come to full, rich 
development. 

Doctor Conwell maintained that he had no special 
gifts. He had, as he expressed it, a ‘‘natural pulling” 
toward certain things. But every one, he pointed out, 

(352) 





THE MESSAGE OF A LIFE 353 


has a “‘natural pulling’? toward something. It is his 
individuality, the ‘‘Inward Must” as Lowell phrases 
it. This individuality must be developed, and the 
means to do so are on all sides. Man’s part, Doctor 
Conwell believed, is to see and utilize them. 

Education is one of the first necessities for this 
development. Education, Doctor Conwell said, is 
everywhere—in the field, the woods, the streams. 
The securing of an education is not dependent entirely 
upon material circumstances or wealth, but upon the 
spirit’s seeing and hearing what is around it. When 
at Wilbraham, he wrote to a little boy of the home 
neighborhood: 

‘“‘T imagine I hear you saying, ‘What have I to 
study?’ I have not the books, nor the necessary 
explanations if I did have them. Now, if I read you 
aright you do not know whether you want books or 
not; at least, you do not know what ones. Now take 
the advice of one who is deeply interested in your wel- 
fare and keep thinking. ‘That is the study I mean. 
When you go into the barn to let out the cows, think. 
Think, too, when you see a rock or a ledge; of how it 
was formed and how the elements have worn it away; 
or if it is in a sandy place, of how the soil has added 
to it. 

‘When you see a stream of water, think how that 
stream has flowed for centuries and, if possible, find 
the place where it flowed a hundred years ago, for it is 
always changing its course. Think, while cutting the 
grass or hay, how every hollow space in those spears 
of grass is filled with moisture which presses out and 
makes the stalk grow larger.” 

This reaching out for knowledge Doctor Conwell has 
proved will bring knowledge. Men and women every- 
where are ready to help the boy or girl who is trying to 


ay a 


354 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


make his or her way. Today, anyone who is willing 
to work can get an education. 

Then, when one has fed the life within with what is 
necessary to its growth, Doctor Conwell’s belief was 
that it is man’s part to let this life express itself fully— 
to let it flow without check or hindrance. There must 
be no doubt or hesitation or fear to impede its progress. 
But, in addition, it must be expressed in accord with 
good. ‘To make the most of life, says he, one must 
recognize good, assimilate good and express good. 

Says Tolstoy, ‘‘The only true living is to live for the 
soul; for God.’”’ To live for good, sums up for Tolstoy 
the meaning of life. Doctor Conwell believed the same. 
To him life was receptivity to and co-operation with 
the divine power. 

This is the rock upon which Russell Conwell stood. 
He never had a dollar of capital in any enterprise that 
he started. He commenced his quest for an educa- 
tion with nothing but a determination to secure it. 
He married without ‘‘prospects.’”’ He started life, a 
stranger in a new town, without a dollar. His first 
pastorate was that of a church on the brink of disband- 
ing. His second was that of a church that was appar- 
ently a failure. He began Temple University and 
Samaritan Hospital without financial backing. Never 
did he have capital. Never did he have influence. 

A well known writer says: ‘‘The biggest and best 
thing about Russell Conwell is not his famous lecture, 
‘Acres of Diamonds,’ or any one of his words or works. 
It is Russell H. Conwell, a boy who took hold of a 
mighty discouraging personal outlook and has made it 
one of the most valuable human estates in the world 
today. He himself is more inspiring than anything he 
_ has ever said or done, despite all he has said and all 
he has done.”’ 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


“Oppn THE GATES OF THE TEMPLE’’* 


ND so the brave and lonely life of Russell Conwell 
A went steadily on. The tasks he had set for 
himself were still unfinished. The world was 
still calling for his voice. The Temple, the 
University, the hospitals, required his leadership. It 
was plain that there would be no discharge in that war. 
In spite of the consecration and cheerfulness with 
which he lived his life, the daily burden did not become 
easier. He was now an old man, in his eighty-third 
year. His journeys were undertaken with a nurse. 
Physicians watched over him. His many helpers 
sought continually how to be of service. But as he 
had never asked luxuries for himself, so now he was 
reluctant to accept even a well-earned furlough. It 
was doubtless because he knew himself to be so eager 
and so unwilling to be thwarted or postponed that he 
once humbly confessed: ‘‘God and man have been 
very patient with me.’ For many years there had 
been no one to welcome him to the quiet house that 
was his home. He lived in the institutions that called 
him father and in the great world that now listened 
with reverence to the gentle voice, that spoke from 
stern and suffering lips. He had himself become, 
through sixty years of public service, one of his coun- 
try’s institutions, and grandparents led grandsons to 
listen to the voice that all knew must ere long be stilled. 
Death came at last as relief from long suffering. 
rs This chapter is approved by William Dye McCurdy, for many 
years Doctor Conwell’s associate at the Temple. 
23 (355) 


356 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


Until the spring of 1925 Doctor Conwell had met his 
daily routine with the same resilient vigor of mind, the 
same keen imagination, the same generous outgiving 
spirit as ever. But in May he was obliged to give up 
both lecturing and preaching, through illness, although 
until then none had known any lessening of his elo- 
quence, his sympathy, his charm and power. He went 
to Atlantic City in the hope of recuperation. But as 
the months passed it was realized that he was severely 
ill. In September he was operated on in the Samaritan 
Hospital, of which he himself was founder. It was 
found that only a palliative operation was possible— 
that cancer of the stomach had reached a stage that 
was beyond hope. Weeks of illness followed. Two 
weeks before the end he was removed to his home. 
During these days of weakness he manifested the same 
tenacity of purpose, the indomitable will, as through- 
out his life. Multitudes of friendly gifts and messages 
soothed the hours of weariness, and tidings of the great 
work of which he was founder, carried on but a few 
doors away, cheered his heart. His extraordinary hold 
upon the common people, rather than upon the rich, 
was shown before his death in the unexampled gift for 
paying a debt upon his work, which was causing him 
anxiety, of $15,000 from the employees of the Phila- 
delphia Rapid Transit Company. 

At 2.05 Sunday morning, December 6, 1925, the 
gates of the Temple opened and Russell Conwell 
passed into Eternal Life. 

Just before he lapsed for the last time into uncon- 
sciousness his daughter caught from his lips the words: 
‘The gates—the gates of the temple.” 

“You mean, you want the choir to sing that hymn?” 
she asked him. 

‘Yes, that’s it,’’ he answered. 


“OPEN THE GATES OF THE TEMPLE” 357 


And so on Wednesday afternoon when the earthly 
Temple was opened and the great throng surged through 
the doors, in the solemn stillness the great chorus sang, 
not a dirge, but the jubilant words of the Doctor’s 
favorite anthem: ‘Open the Gates of the Temple.” 

They were indeed symbolical. Everyone every- 
where knew ‘Doctor Conwell’s Church” as ‘The 
Temple,” rather than as the Grace Baptist Church. 
His own mind loved the symbolism of the word, for 
to him the church was indeed a temple and like the 
one of old, with ever-open gates. 

“Thy gates shall be open continually; 
They shall not be shut day nor night: .. . 


Open to me the gates of righteousness; 
I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord.” 


Remembering that “‘gates’’ are symbols of hope and 
expectancy, one thinks of those mysterious second- 
floor doors that Doctor Conwell built out from. the 
side walls of the Temple Church, and how, later, as he 
had hoped, they became open doors of communication 
between the Church and the University. And who 
can doubt that that mind, so humble yet so sure of 
eternal realities, in its last consciousness seized upon 
the personal promise: ‘‘Blessed are they that do his 
commandments, that they may enter in through the 
gates into the city.” 

Russell Conwell was not without tributes of grati- 
tude and appreciation while he lived, but the news of 
his death caused many to think anew of the special 
significance of his magnificent life. No tribute was 
more thoughtful than that of Edward W. Bok, the 
donor of the Philadelphia Award, which was voted to 
Doctor Conwell in 1923. Mr. Bok said: ‘‘I never 
met a man who was so thoroughly selfless as Russell 
Conwell. He never had himself in mind. His thought 


358 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


and works were always for the institutions which he 
created or for the people of his parish. That made 
him a very difficult man to refuse. He never asked 
anything of me but that I felt I should give to him as 
he gave to others.’? Doctor Floyd W. Tomkins at 
the funeral echoed the same thoughts. He said: ‘“‘He 
forgot himself—to help others. He held nothing back. 
A man of vision, he always saw the good that is to be. 
He saw the vision of this church, the vision of Temple 
University, the vision of the world’s true excellence, 
the vision of true patriotism. The great secret of life 
is in service—in doing for others and forgetting our- 
selves. His ministry was not a thing of afew years, but 
it was building for the Kingdom of God that is to be.” 

‘He never had himself in mind.” ‘He forgot him- 
self.’ This thought was voiced by nearly all who 
knew him. Samuel 8. Fleisher, a noble Hebrew who 
received the Philadelphia Award in 1924, said: ‘To 
him the word ‘people’ meant everyone.’”’ Bishop 
Berry of the Methodist Church added: ‘‘He was a 
brother to those who needed a brother, and a helper 
to those who needed a helper.” Doctor William D. 
McCurdy, who had been for years his faithful asso- 
ciate, recalled Russell Conwell’s early resolution to 
live two lives, his own and the life of Johnny Ring, 
and declared: ‘‘The debt to Johnny Ring is paid now. 
The sword that the captain took from the parched 
hands of his orderly lies today in the captain’s motion- 
less hands. Two men’s work has been done. ‘This 
church and this university are monuments together 
to Doctor Conwell and Johnny Ring.’ The sword 
that Johnny Ring saved lay in his dead hand. 

When we think of how for over half a century Doctor 
Conwell lived on public platforms and in public con- 
veyances, to how many thousands he addressed him- 


“OPEN THE GATES OF THE TEMPLE” 359 


self, and how little leisure he had for quiet thought, 
for solitude, or even for his own home, we may wonder 
if this giving of one’s self wholesale and to the crowd is 
worth while. But let us remember the purpose that 
was behind all. It was not merely to raise money for 
his church and college; it was not to be a popular 
orator, or to win personal fame. Russell Conwell, 
whether upon a Chautauqua platform or in the Temple 
pulpit, regarded himself as a prophet and a minister of 
Jesus Christ. ‘To one of his close friends he once said: 
‘“‘T feel, whenever I preach, that there is always one 
person in the congregation to whom, in all probability, 
I shall never preach again, and therefore I feel that I 
must exert my utmost power in that last chance.” 
‘And in this,’ added Robert Shackelton, ‘“‘one sees 
why his energy never lags. Not a moment, not an 
opportunity must be lost.” 

In dwelling upon the great and varied service of his 
life, those who knew him and loved him recalled two 
thoughts that should not be forgotten. 

One is, of the surety of his faith. Doctor Laura H. 
Carnell, Associate to the President of Temple Univer- 
sity, remembering their long codperation, spoke both of 
his indomitable courage in difficulties and of his assured 
hope for the future of the work he had established. 
Two days before his death he whispered to her: “‘ Carry 
on—our program.”’ She says: ‘‘ He never saw obstacles, 
but believed that patience\and perseverance could ‘over- 
come them. He'was so sure those: around him could 
do the task he set them that they did it.” This is why 
the Temple and the University are sure to live. 

The other thought is, of the simplicity of his faith. 
Like a child, he rested all his trust in Jesus. One of his 
brother ministers, remembering that, though his last 
days were spent while theological controversy was rife, 


360 RUSSELL H. CONWELL AND HIS WORK 


he never descended to it, said of him: ‘‘He did not 
attempt to define Christ, but to live like Him.” 

But after the tributes of the great and notable are 
forgotten one pauses to think of those that will never 
be printed, some of them never be written down, that 
came from the humble whom he helped, the sick whom 
he served, the young men and women to whom he 
opened the gates of opportunity. These were indeed 
his crown of rejoicing. 

It is a joy to know that Russell Conwell, at the very 
close of his life, wrote down for us his lifelong aspira- 
tion. It rings true to his message, and will be remem- 
bered as his legacy to the world. It is entitled, ‘‘My 
Prayer.” In the form of free verse he dictated it, 
lying in the Samaritan Hospital a month before his 
passing, on the 4th of November. He sent it to some of 
his friends, and it was printed in his church magazine. 

MY PRAYER 


I ask not for a larger garden, 
But for finer seeds. 
I ask not for a more distant view, 
But for a clearer vision of the hills between. 
I ask not to do more deeds, 
But more effective ones. 
I ask not for a longer life, 
But a more efficient one for the present hour. 


T want to plant more, 
Advertise more; 
Tell the story of Jesus 
In clearer form; 
I want the world to be more wise, 
And also more glad because I was used. 


May some oak say, 
“T grew stronger;”’ 
May some lily say, 
“T grew purer;”’ 
May some fountain say, 
“T threw the clear water higher.” 


May some good book be read; 

May some good friendship be made; 

May my total influence tell for righteousness, 
Without an unnecessary tear. 


APPENDIX 


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[ 
A PERIL TO DEMOCRACY 


An Interview in which Doctor Conwell Points Out 
an Encroaching Danger in Our Educational System. 


tional matters, together with his own struggles 

as a poor boy to secure an education, makes 

him quick to detect any influence that may 
work for harm in the scholastic system of the coun- 
try. One such evil he has discerned and vigorously 
pointed out. 

In a recent address he said: ‘‘A peril menaces the 
American people today, of which they do not yet seem 
aware. The American spirit—the spirit of democracy 
—is in danger of being killed. The germ of aristocracy 
is being planted. Bars are being raised to keep the 
poor boy out of the professions. If these obstacles are 
arbitrarily increased, we will eventually have in this 
country two classes—a peasant class and an aristo- 
cratic class. They may not be so named, but they 
will be so in fact.” 

This statement was taken up by the newspapers, and 
a widespread discussion followed. In an interview, he 
told in detail the danger he saw ahead for the poor 
boy and ultimately for the democratic ideal as upheld 
in this country. 

“It is quite true,” Doctor Conwell said, in this 
further discussion, ‘‘that there is a tendency at present 
to shut the poor boy out of the higher vocations. In 
spite of the seeming wealth of educational opportunities 

(363) 


|) tion CONWELL’S close touch with educa- 


364 APPENDIX 


in this country for the poor boy, there is a movement on 
foot to close certain doors to him. They can only be 
opened by a key of gold. If I were starting today as I 
did fifty years ago—with nothing but health and 
determination to make may way into a profession— 
I could not succeed. I would reach a point where I 
could not pass without the open sesame of money. 
‘“‘T will illustrate with medicine, because that has 
come chiefly under my observation. But, unless this 
danger is checked, the same conditions will prevail 
eventually in other professions if they do not already 
in certain instances. He took up a pamphlet bearing 
the title, ‘‘Medical Education in the United States: 
Pages from the Educational Number of the Journal of 
the American Medical Association, August 22, 1914.” 
He turned casually from one page to another and read: 
‘In order to secure licenses to practice medicine in 
Alabama, students must have completed two years’ 
work in an approved college of liberal arts.” ‘To 
secure licenses to practice medicine in California, 
students matriculating in medical colleges must have 
completed at least one year of recognized college 
work!’ Colorado requires two years’ study without 
conditions in an accredited college. A four years’ high- 
school course and at least nine months of collegiate work 
are what Connecticut demands. ‘‘To be eligible to 
practice medicine in Illinois, students in addition to 
an accredited four-year high-school education must have 
completed a year of collegiate work;’ he read again. 
‘“‘New Hampshire says, ‘Only graduates of medical 
colleges registered by the Regents of New Hampshire 
are eligible to obtain licenses to practice medicine.’”’ 
Doctor Conwell turned page after page. ‘Almost 
every state in the Union has these requirements. 
Here is the law in Pennsylvania. ‘To be eligible for 


APPENDIX 365 


license to practice medicine in Pennsylvania, students 
matriculating, in addition to a four-year high-school 
course, must have completed a year’s work either in 
an approved college of liberal arts or in a preliminary 
year in the medical college. And he must also have 
completed an internship of at least one year in an 
approved hospital.’ 

“You will notice that all through these require- 
ments runs the word ‘approved’ or ‘acceptable.’ A 
great danger can lurk in these words. I do not say 
there does now. I merely say there can. The world 
has suffered before from the spirit back of such things, 
when the wrong spirit is in power.” 

He turned a few more pages and read, ‘‘Standards of 
the Council of Medical Education of the American 
Medical Association: A requirement for admission is 
at least eight semester hours. ... Thirty-two weeks 
of actual instruction. ... Under no circumstances 
should credit be given for any course where the attend- 
ance has been less than eighty per cent of the full 
time. ... Not to rate higher than Class C, any 
medical college which gives the major portion of its 
instruction after four o’clock in the afternoon. 

“This all sounds very well. It seems to imply that 
we are to have exceptionally skilled, well-instructed 
doctors in the years to come. But what does it mean? 
Do hours in a classroom necessarily mean proficiency? 
Is a man who works at night and sleeps until one or 
two o’clock the next day less able to study after four 
o’clock in the afternoon than some rich fellow who 
dissipates half the night and goes to his classroom at 
nine o’clock in the morning? 

‘“‘T believe in proficiency. I believe fully in all the 
study and instruction and experimental and laboratory 
work possible. But I say, let examinations be the test 


366 APPENDIX 


of fitness—not hours in classrooms, or credentials from 
some ‘approved’ college. Let the examinations be as 
rigid as possible. We cannot be too careful in licensing 
medical practitioners. But if a man can pass, give 
him his license, whether he has spent thirty-two hours 
in an actual classroom or has studied in the barn 
between chores, or in an attic half the night. 

‘““My honest belief is that the man who works to 
get a medical education from sheer love of the pro- 
fession will, as a rule, make a better doctor than one 
whose tuition is paid through some rich college by his 
father. We are shutting out the poor, ambitious, 
earnest young man and woman from the medical 
fraternity, and in time from other professions—for 
this tendency will spread if unchecked—when we say 
they must spend so many hours in classrooms and that 
they cannot study at night; that is, that credits from 
night work will not be accepted in granting licenses. 

‘“'The results of these requirements is that the evening 
medical schools all over the country have been closed, 
and all those young men and women who have been 
studying in these night classes have had to give up 
their studies. 

‘“‘ Another point that comes to mind right here is the 
fact that a man who will study at night and odd times 
—who will work in this way to get his education—has 
the perseverance and grit that make a good doctor. 
And he is apt to have the physical stamina that enables 
him to stand the strain of medical work. 

“But there are other requirements of the medical 
schools now that will have an effect upon the future of 
medical students. No institution can be recognized 
as a medical school from now on unless it has a certain 
amount of money invested in buildings and a certain 
number of professors whose entire time is given to 


APPENDIX 367 


teaching in the medical school, and unless it has a 
large laboratory and carries on extensive original 
research. 

‘The results of this ruling are many. Do not mis- 
understand me—the more suitable the buildings, the 
better equipped the laboratories, the more skilled the 
professors, the better for the students. I believe in 
having the very best it is possible to get in all these 
matters; but—’’ Doctor Conwell paused. ‘‘ What does 
this ruling mean? It means heavily-endowed institu- 
tions—institutions of wealth—institutions to which the 
wealthy young men of the country will go. 

“Will the poor boy with shabby clothes; the boy 
who cannot enter into the social life of a rich university ; 
the boy who must attend direct from shop or store; 
will this boy want to enter such an institution? Or if 
he does enter, can he pursue his studies there with that 
contentment of spirit that he would were the difference 
between him and his classmates less marked? The 
exceptional boy might, though at much inward 
suffering. 

‘But not every poor boy would. And I do not think 
that the poorer institutions that are doing good work 
and whose students could successfully pass the examina- 
tions—were examination the test—should be closed 
because they cannot measure up to these requirements. 
I say, again, that the work of the students—not the 
cost of the buildings nor the apparatus in the laboratory 
—should be the test for fitness to practice medicine. 

“Then, again, the necessity for costly buildings and 
apparatus, and professors who must depend entirely 
upon teaching and not upon practice for their Incomes 
—and I am not so sure that the instructor who does 
not practice medicine is, in some departments, the 
best teacher; but that is a side issue which I shall not 


368 APPENDIX 


discuss at present—all these requirements that necessi- 
tate much money mean concentration. Concentration 
in some things is good; but it can be overdone. 

‘“‘T believe that the schools for the people should be 
kept near the people. There should be centers for 
special work, and one great national institution for 
the highest work. Personally, I would like to see that 
institution situated at Washington, with the govern- 
ment providing a certain amount of financial support. 
Here should be made the great experiments and 
investigations. It should be the last word in our 
medical institutions; the greatest medical honor to 
belong to it; and the highest professional distinction 
to graduate from it. But, for the simpler grades of 
medical work, there should be medical schools scattered 
over the country near the people. Not every doctor 
needs to be a specialist or to go into the higher research 
work in bacteriology and such things. 

‘““We need more doctors, more lawyers and more 
ministers than we ever did before; but there is a 
large class of work awaiting these people that does not 
require post-graduate or special study. Nearly all 
corporations are employing their own doctors and 
nurses. Most of their cases are the simple, everyday 
illnesses that befall the average home. A doctor for 
such work could come from the schools near the people. 
This does not mean that an ambitious man cannot go 
on and study in the higher schools if he wants to, or 
that an unusual or difficult case could not be referred 
to a specialist. 

“This is a practical need. Let us meet it practically 
with schools where men who can do this work can 
attend, and which will give them what they need. 
This need will not be met with a few expensive schools 
situated perhaps far distant from the homes of the 


APPENDIX 369, 


students, which means traveling expenses and board, 
and which require them to take a curriculum not 
essential to the work they wish to do. 

“Suppose that, instead of keeping among my people 
and attending to the practical work of my church, I 
were compelled—in order to be allowed to preach—to 
study various doctrinal matters and examine the many 
theories of theology, what would become of the actual 
work that needs to be done? Let those fitted for 
higher research work and who want to do it, take it up. 
Let others who want to do a different kind of work 
have the opportunity to prepare for their work. We 
are in danger of getting into formalities—of insisting 
upon the letter and forgetting the spirit. 

“It will soon be that, unless a man or woman is a 
graduate of a school of journalism, he or she will find 
it difficult to obtain a position upon a newspaper; 
unless a man passes so many hours or weeks or years 
in a college classroom he will not be admitted to the 
bar. This is the lurking danger that I see—that not 
what a man knows will be the test; but whether he 
has spent so many hours a week—hours of daytime, 
too—in ‘approved’ institutions, which must be richly 
endowed and consequently few in number. This 
means undoubtedly cutting the poor boy out. 

‘*No young man can reach the practice of medicine 
in America now unless he has money enough to support 
himself for several years while he is in college and in 
day medical schools. ‘Thus you see the poor boy is 
shut out entirely from the profession. It is now 
practically impossible for the young man without 
capital to enter the medical profession. 

“T have no objections to standards being raised. 
But to require study in definite schools selected by 
wealthy and influential boards is an injustice. The 





370 APPENDIX 


man who does the most in any line of work is the man 
who has labored with both his hands and his brain. 
We today are profiting by the toil of such men. But 
this is what we are now shutting out, and the next 
generation will suffer. 

‘“‘Let there be rigid standards of examination—the 
same in every state if this be deemed desirable—a 
national standard as it were. But let the man who can 
pass this examination be given his license to practice 
medicine or dentistry or law, or whatever it is that the 
spirit within him has told him is his life-work, no 
matter how he got his knowledge. Do not let it be 
obligatory that it must be secured by passing so many 
hours in the classroom of some ‘approved’ institution. 

“Tf this latter spirit gets in control, we shall see an 
ever-widening breach between the people of this coun- 
try; on the one side, the poor and their children kept 
to certain walks of life; on the other side, the rich and 
their families taking possession of our professions and 
so-called higher occupations. And the poor young 
man or woman will be unable to cross this breach. 
I think it is an eventuality that the American people 
should face open-eyed and see if, as a people, they 
want to travel in this direction.” 

The newspapers and journals that investigated the 
matter found that the peril that Doctor Conwell had 
pointed out had already to some extent taken form. 
Upon investigation it was found that a young man 
who wishes to become a physician must plan to give 
from eleven to twelve years to study before he can 
get his license—four years in high school; one or two 
years in college, according to the requirements of the 
medical school he may desire to enter; four years in 
a medical school and, in Pennsylvania, one year in a 
hospital, before he can receive a license to practice. 


APPENDIX 371 


In Pennsylvania and in certain other states, if a 
person can pass an examination in high-school studies, 
a certificate to this effect will be accepted, whether he 
has actually studied in a high school or not. Also, in 
Pennsylvania, a similar examination is held for the one 
or two years of college work required for entrance to 
medical schools. But not all medical schools wili 
accept this latter certificate. They insist upon the 
actual hours and weeks of study in an “approved” 
institution. As the medical schools that insist upon 
this will be acclaimed as having the highest standards, 
it is a case of wheels within wheels; the letter instead 
of the spirit; the dollar mark upon the certificate. 

The medical student, according to this new ruling, 
must face eleven or twelve years of study. What are 
his expenses likely to be for that period? The Colum- 
bia University of New York City, in its Bulletin of 
Information, gives a table of students’ probable expenses 
for an academic year from October to June, based on 
students’ statements. 

The lowest figures are $507 for thirty-nine weeks. 
Admitting that the would-be medical student has 
taken his high-school studies at night or at odd times 
and has earned his living while pursuing them, he still 
has one or two years of college; four years of medical 
school; and, in Pennsylvania, one year of hospital 
work to pay for. While taking these studies, since he 
must take them in the daytime and spend a specified 
number of hours in a classroom he is not likely to be 
able to earn much. 

Therefore, during the thirteen weeks which he has 
free—his term, according to the table prepared by the 
Columbia College, occupying thirty-nine weeks—he 
must earn enough to pay his current expenses and 
provide the $507 which he needs for the student year 


24 


372 APPENDIX 


ahead. Putting the student’s cost of living for these 
thirteen weeks at the low figure of five dollars a week, 
he must earn in this time the sixty-five dollars for 
board and the $507 for tuition; which means that he 
must make a salary of almost forty-five dollars a 
week in order to pursue his medical studies under 
present requirements. 

The boy who wishes to study during the entire 
eleven or twelve years, without turning aside to work, 
must, according to the lowest computation based upon 
the figures given by the Columbia University, have a 
capital of close to $6,000 to draw upon. And then, 
when he has expended this amount for his studies, he 
is only ready to begin practice. He has as yet no 
income from his work. Does it not look as if the 
medical profession—and others which will undoubtedly 
fall into line if this spirit grows—is only for the rich? 

The reason advanced for all of these new regula- 
tions is the raising of standards. And it is implied 
that those students who study at night and in spare 
moments, who do not pass a required number of hours 
in classrooms of ‘“‘approved”’ institutions, are not 
properly fitted for the work which they are undertaking. 

History is so full of incidents to disprove this implica- 
tion that it would scarcely seem worth while to con- 
sider the question, were not the effort so patent to 
discredit the boy who studies at night. Instantly into 
mind flashes the picture of Lincoln studying by the 
light of the logs in the fireplace. And scores of illus- 
trations of other great men who secured their education 
in such ways could be given. But, say those who are 
advocating the present system, conditions were dif- 
ferent then; and standards were accepted in times 
past that could not be sanctioned now. 

In many of the large cities at the present time are 


APPENDIX 373 


scores of men who obtained, at night schools and in 
their spare moments, the education that enabled them 
to successfully pass the examinations required for the 
license to perform the work in which they are now 
engaged. It mattered not where they studied. The 
examination was the test; they passed it; and are now 
living their lives on a far higher plane. And they are 
more useful in their family life and as citizens than 
they would have been had rulings been in force to 
keep them from their present life-work. 

To turn again to the medical fraternity for examples, 
the night medical school of the Temple University has 
graduated many students who are now most successful 
physicians. One of the foremost specialists in Phila- 
delphia was a hat finisher in one of the city’s large 
factories when he began the study of medicine. He 
studied at night at the Temple University and worked 
during the day. He finally finished his course, grad- 
uated, was appointed resident physician at one of the 
city hospitals, and is now doing excellent work as a 
specialist. His persistence and genuine love of the 
work carried him through. A required number of 
hours in an ‘‘approved”’ institution would have 
blocked the way. 

A clerk in the United States Army service in the 
Philippines who wished to study medicine heard that 
it was possible to take a night course in Philadelphia. 
He secured a transfer from his position to one at Gray’s 
Ferry—a suburb of Philadelphia—and began his night 
studies at the Temple University. He graduated 
high in his class; won in a competitive examination for 
intern at the Philadelphia Hospital; finished his 
service there; and then went to Hawaii, where he is 
one of the leading specialists in certain diseases. 

One of the health officers of Portland, Oregon, is a 


374 APPENDIX 


graduate of the night medical school of the Temple 
University. 

A stenographer, who used his spare time for medical 
studies at the Temple University, now has a fine 
practice and is in charge of the laboratory work in one 
of the country’s finest hospitals. 

A clerk in a cigar factory, who pursued his medical 
studies at the Temple University as time and money 
permitted, filled very satisfactorily the position of 
resident physician in a city hospital; is now a lecturer 
in a medical institution; and has a successful practice. 

One of the police surgeons of Philadelphia secured 
his medical education by studying at the Temple 
University during his spare hours. He, also, is a lec- 
turer in one of the city’s medical schools and has held 
the position of resident physician in a hospital there. 

The first on the list in one of the examinations for 
interns at Blockley—the Municipal Hospital of Phila- 
delphia—was a graduate of the Temple University 
night medical school. After his work at Blockley, he 
entered the army service and is now in general practice 
and most successful. 

Several teachers have taken medical courses in their 
spare hours simply to help them in their school work. 
The superintendent of a Philadelphia school holds a 
license obtained in this way. He worked for it that 
he might be of more use in his present position. 

An Episcopalian minister of New Jersey, who was in 
charge of a mission church and felt that a knowledge of 
medicine would help him in his work, studied in spare 
time, passed the examination, and thus is able to do 
much good work among the poor of his parish. 

Such instances could be multiplied by the score. 
But had “hours” and “approved”’ institutions been 
required, none of these men could be doing the work 


APPENDIX 375 


they are now accomplishing. Opportunity would 
have been taken away from them, and their usefulness 
limited. ‘They would have been kept in the ‘‘class”’ in 
which they were born. ‘They could not have risen to a 
life-work for which they were fitted by natural ability 
irrespective of birth. 

Doctor Conwell has so vigorously combatted the 
evil; he has so stirred public opinion to the danger 
to democratic institutions lurking in it that it is not 
likely that it will obtain the hold which it might, had 
he not discerned it and fought it. 


TI 
‘““Tam BATTLEFIELDS OF THE REBELLION” 


Letter from Russell Conwell on the Mountains and 
Valleys Around Chattanooga and the Present 
Appearance of Lookout Mountain, Published wn 
the ‘‘ Daily Evening Traveller’ of Boston, July 13, 
1869. 


66 (): the mountains, how we love to gaze upon 


them and dream! How our soul fills with 

unspeakable pleasure as we contemplate 

the rocky cliffs and the roaring gorges of the 
mountains! It is the inspired pleasure which one feels 
only when he looks upon the mighty works of God. 
The spirit of the heroes and demons of the mountains! 
Are they a myth? Nay. Go! Ye disbelievers who 
laugh at ghost stories and fairy tales; sit beside that 
sweet waterfall on the cliff side of Lookout Moun- 
tain, and tell if ye doubt their existence then. 

‘Go! sit on the jutting rock that is bathed with the 
spray, ard gaze up at the little stream as it leaps over 
the rock forty feet above; and then at the snowy spray 
cloud that rolls and floats away—away down among 
the bushes and trees forty feet below. The stout old 
trees creak and sway in the winds above; the pines 
down the mountainside moan and the waterfall laughs. 
Away through the trees are those other mountains, 
shadowy and blue, just veiling the sky of the far-off 
horizon. He who can sit there alone, surrounded by 
those jagged rocks and monumental mountains, and 
see no German fairies, English ghosts, Arabian peris, 

(376) 


APPENDIX 377 


or Norwegian demons, hath surely no taste for natural 
beauty; nor a fit appreciation of the all-inspiring 
works of the Almighty. 

“Do the boys remember that Lookout Mountain 
Battle? Joe Hooker himself did not believe it could 
be done. ‘Tell them to come back,’ shouted the 
general in command. But no notice of orders direct- 
ing a retreat was taken, and onward and upward they 
went, climbing precipices, rocks and trees, swinging 
to the edge of ledges; pulling one another up among 
the clouds; caring nothing for the hideous shell that 
came crashing down among the trees until the citadel 
was taken and one more victory for freedom was. 
recorded in the world’s history. 

“Grand Old Mountain! Grand old soldiers of a 
grand old people! How proud of our nation, our 
country and our people were we the day we visited 
Lookout Mountain. The changes were many which in- 
tervened between that immortal day and the May day 
when we were there. The rifle pits which Hooker’s 
Division carried and from which his forces charged 
up the mountain had nearly all been washed away; 
enough was left, however, to mark the direction of the 
line, and recall to mind the terrible events of, ‘that 
great avenging day; but, farther up, the mountain- 
side the trees and moss have grown anew; the bushes 
which the soldiers uprooted as they pulled themselves 
up, had decayed and given place to others, and nothing 
remains to remind us of war. 

‘“‘ ‘Nothing,’ did we say? Not so. Under a little 
pine tree, near the precipitous ledge which the boys 
will remember, we found a human skeleton. We were 
pulling ourselves along up the edge of the rock and, 
finding our footing insecure, we seized upon the prof- 
fered branch of a neighborly pine. Up it came by the 


378 APPENDIX 


roots, taking with it a thin scale of soil which covered 
the rock, and exposing to the sun the grinning skull 
of a Union soldier. Near it was an old Springfield 
musket covered with rust and broken in twain. The 
bayonet, so blackened and tarnished that we first took 
it for a stick, was thrust into the ground near the 
skull and the finger bones lay about it, as if the sol- 
dier had clasped it when he died. 

‘“A bundle which had evidently been a knapsack 
lay a few feet off, and had the appearance of being in 
use as a bird’s nest, for little pieces of blue overcoat 
and threads of the gray blanket were neatly arranged 
in the shape of a nest, which, however, had been torn 
by a fox or other marauding animal. In all proba- 
bility the little bird had made her nest in the decaying 
knapsack and the little four-footed enemy of birdly 
innocence came and, in the presence of the soldier’s 
bones, broke the eggs and killed the songster. It was 
a matter of surprise to us that the wild beasts which 
came so near to search for eggs should not disturb the 
bones of the lost soldier. 

‘‘A few pieces of the spinal column lay scattered 
around, but otherwise the skeleton was entire. Near 
the spot we found a United States infantry button, 
and the soles of a pair of shoes, but nothing to identify 
the man who gave his life for the nation in that dread- 
ful charge. Whose son or brother he was—whose 
husband or father—eternity alone can tell! Yet we 
could not avoid the thoughts as we stood gazing upon 
the sad scene, that perchance somebody who reads 
the Traveller, or some one we personally know, might 
be the dearest one to this soldier of Hooker’s Corps 
from whom his friends had never heard. 

‘ “Never been heard from’ is his record on the page 
of history! ‘Dead’ in the record of mortals. ‘In 


APPENDIX 379 


Heaven,’ we hope, in the records of eternity. With 
no implements to bury him, and no soil deep enough 
if we had, we could not do otherwise than clamber on, 
leaving the bones to be ground to dust by the merciless 
hand of time. 

‘Pulpit Rock, from which Jeff Davis harangued the 
Confederates, and near which the rebels had some of 
their heaviest guns, appeared as familiar as an old 
friend, and seemed to smile in derision at the change- 
able growth and decay that has been going on around. 
The shell-split trees have recovered from their wounds; 
the earthworks have washed away; the hospital build- 
ings and negro huts are gone; yet the old rock stands » 
there on the summit like a sentinel, and will stand 
there in the hundreds of years to come, to tell the 
story of the slave-holding rebellion and the charge of 
the National troops. To us whose pride had been 
touched in the days of war it seemed to say: ‘When 
I remind visitors of the battle, I also insinuate that 
below me the troops of the stigmatized ‘paper colored 
vision’ rebutted the slurs that the Western troops saw 
fit to cast upon them for belonging to the spade-and- 
shovel Army of the Potomac.’ But with the history 
of rebellion or battles we have little to do. 

‘““We pass on down the eastern slope of the great 
mountain to ascertain how Chattanooga appears 
today. ‘The old forts, which covered every hill of the 
little town, look like Indian mounds, so torn and shat- 
tered, decayed and washed are they now. A few 
more years and even these red mounds will have dis- 
appeared and the ‘great railroad center’ of Chatta- 
nooga will not dream of battle or siege. The town 
itself has not recovered from the war, unless it always 
had a forsaken, slovenly appearance. Removing the 
tents, the barracks and the stables and filling the 


380 APPENDIX 


quartermaster’s stores and the commissary warehouse 
with peanuts and candy, soda water and persimmon 
beer is a sinking in poetry that strikes the returner 
first as being a little ridiculous. 

‘The old headquarters where Thomas, Grant, Sher- 
man and McPherson had their quarters, still stand 
near the town house, so unchanged that we felt as if 
one of them ought to be sitting on the porch. A new 
bridge has been built across the river, and the old 
swing ferry is going to decay. Cameron’s hill with its 
washed earthworks is said to be destined for the 
grounds and mansion of a Massachusetts man who 
went to Chattanooga to engage in building the new 
railroad line south to Charleston, South Carolina. 
Some ruins and dilapidated walls of houses destroyed 
during the war still remain, although many have been 
cleared away preparatory to reconstruction. 

“The old railroad depot still bears the marks of the 
soldiers’ penknives, and the name of many a sentinel 
who wished thus to immortalize himself stands out in 
bold relief from the soft boards on which it is carved. 
The short trains of half-loaded cars that now come and 
go, form a striking contrast with the long, over-loaded 
trains that came and went when Sherman was march- 
ing on Atlanta. The fields around, which were cov- 
ered so thick with tents when Bragg threatened the 
town, and on which has been so many brigade drills 
and dress parades, are now verdant with growing 
grain. 

“It was exceedingly gratifying, amid the many 
changes that have taken place, to see at least one 
familiar object. The National flag was there. About 
half-way between Orchard Knob and the town, and 
near the Chattanooga and Knoxville Railroad, stands 
the National Cemetery. And above it, in all its pride 
and glory, waves the ensign of the United States. 


APPENDIX 381 


‘When we visited the cemetery a touching incident 
occurred, which we cannot refrain from putting on 
record. It was nearly dark. The flag was hauled 
down, the keeper shut the gate, and the dew was 
beginning to fall. We clambered over the fence and 
strayed among the graves, endeavoring to find how 
many of the Second and Thirty-third Massachusetts 
lay there, supposing ourself to be the only person in 
the grounds. Suddenly, from a little clump of graves 
beyond the flagstaff, a voice arose as clear and sweet 
as an angel’s singing the familiar words: 


‘“‘ “When we hear the music ringing, 
In the bright celestial dome; 
When sweet angel voices singing, 
Gladly bid us welcome home; 

To the land of ancient story, 
Where the spirit knows no care; 

In that land of light and glory, 
Shall we know each other there?’ 


“Had a voice from the tomb pronounced the approach 
of the last great day, we could not have been more 
startled, so quiet and still had the cemetery been. 
For a moment we stared in the direction from which 
the voice proceeded, uncertain whether all the ghost 
stories of our youth were not coming true and hoping, 
if it was the voice of a spirit, that it would wait for 
us to ‘retreat in good order’ before it resorted to any 
fiercer demonstration to deprive us of our wits. After 
a second thought, however, we concluded that it was 
the voice of a woman and, as some women are but our 
ideals of angels, it did not take much from the interest 
of the occasion. 

“Going up to the flagstaff as silently as we could, 
we sat down upon a mound and, when the second 
verse began, we endeavored to chime in the bass. In 


382 APPENDIX 


that we were unkind. We ought to have known that 
if a woman’s voice could startle us, how much more 
alarming would it be to a woman to hear a voice at 
once suggestive of the men whose graves surrounded 
her, singing such a song with her. But we did not 
stop to think. Impulse, nothing else, was our motive. 
So we sang; with just such a consequence as any man 
of common sense might have foreseen. 

“She had reached the chorus in which the bass 
repeats the words, ‘we shall know’ while the soprano 
prolongs the sound of the word ‘know,’ before she 
seemed to discover that she was not singing alone and, 
with a shriek as piercing as the song was sweet, a lady 
in black started from the grave of a soldier, exclaim- 
ing in hysterics ‘What is that, Oh! Oh! My God! 
Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear, what shall I do!’ 

‘““*T did not intend to frighten you. I am exceed- 
ingly sorry for it,’ said I, stepping out from the staff. 

“ “Oh sir, was it you? Did you sing?’ exclaimed 
she, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief and uttering 
an hysterical laugh—half ery and half laugh—and 
looking wildly toward the gate. 

““T do not wonder that my singing frightened 
you,’ said I, ‘but it is a question of which of us was the 
most startled.’ So saying, we offered to escort her 
to her home as it was growing dark. But this she 
declined, saying she wished to stay a while longer 
near this spot, as she ‘must go tomorrow’ and we 
left her kneeling by the grass on the grave of an Ohio 
soldier, murmuring again the song, ‘Shall we know 
each other there?’ Ten thousand conjectures have 
we cooked up in regard to this lady and why she was 
there. But, as we did not see her again and none of 
our explanations may be the true one, we must leave 
this tale so far uncompleted. 


APPENDIX 383 


“The next day we strolled along Missionary Ridge, 
to find such traces as might remain of that great 
November battle when the troops by unexampled brav- 
ery out-generaled their own officers. But the growth 
of the woods and the action of the heavy rains have 
obliterated nearly every mark of the battle; and, 
without a guide, a stranger to the field must have 
great difficulty in finding the ‘line of battle.’ Occa- 
sionally a shattered tree; here and there an old shell 
in the thicket; and little open spots where works once 
stood, are all that is left on the spot to tell the tale 
of war. 

‘“‘All the soldiers who were buried here—both Fed- 
eral and Confederate—have been taken up and 
moved to Chattanooga. Near the place where Sher- 
man’s Division made the ‘most brilliant charge of the 
war’ we found the picket posts, in some instances just 
as the soldiers left them five years ago. Some were of 
standing logs—one end on the ground, the other lean- 
ing against a tree—and all placed near enough together 
to protect the picket behind them while he rested his 
gun across the top. In other places short pieces of 
stone wall, or a leaf-filled hole in the ground, showed 
where some picket took measures to protect himself. 
For hours we traveled, clambering up rocks, over 
trees, and through groves until, starting down the 
mountain toward Chickamauga Creek, we stopped in 
at a mud-chinked log hovel to rest and get out of the 
blistering sun. 

“The hut was occupied by a tall, thin woman, about 
forty years of age, a man of about the same age, and 
a little boy of ten years. All three were the dirtiest, 
raggedest and filthiest persons we have had the mis- 
fortune to see. The woman was sucking a snuff-daubed 
rag in her mouth, and snuffing the same nasty material 


384 APPENDIX 


up her nose. The old man’s chin and whiskers were 
dripping with tobacco juice, his feet were are, and 
on his head was a remnant of a faded felt hat. With 
the old pipe in his mouth, his general appearance gave 
us a good personification of indolence and poverty. 

“The little boy seemed to have inherited all the 
worst characteristics of them both, which, together 
with an acquired taste for swearing and kicking his 
mother, made him master of the position. When we 
rapped at the entrance, the little fellow ran to the 
door before his lazy ancestors could muster sufficient 
courage to rise, and, kicking our shins, demanded if we 
didn’t know better than to ‘be around a gemmen’s 
house making sich a cussed row.’ The old man came, 
however, and by means of sundry kicks and cuffs 
succeeded in quieting the human animal, and at once 
invited us in. 

‘““ “To you live here?’ inquired we, for want of any- 
thing else to say. 

‘““ “Wall, the ole ooman and I manige ter stop here,’ 
said the man; ‘ony Bill here, he’s kind o’ unsettled. 
Bill is kinder o’ rude sometimes, but ses I ter ther ole 
ooman tother day, we mustn’t lick Bill as we would 
a nigger; and ses she ter me, I don’t think I would 
nuther. So we don’t.’ 

“The conversation then turned on the weather and 
several topics, and finally we asked him what he 
managed to do for a living. 

‘“““Der,’ said he, ‘I jurst works around and git a few 
dollars huntin’ and diggin’ wild arbs, and then I cums 
hum to the ole ooman, and ses I ter her, Let’s ’joy it, 
and so we ’joy it. If Bill wasn’t unsettled, wede be 
purty good situated. But ther cussed niggers are 
leavin’ or dyin’ off, and sum on us are gettin’ ’fraid 
we'll get starved out sum day.’ 


APPENDIX 385 


“ ‘T should think you would get a better living if 
the negroes were all gone,’ said we. 

‘““*Oh no, the niggers have always done the dirty 
work, and all ther liftin’ and sich, which as how the 
white folks of my persuasion arn’t able to do, an 
wouldn’t if they cood. The niggers were made to 
wait on the white folks. ‘They haint got nothin’, and 
I'd like ter know what in the devil they would do if 
they didn’t look arter white folks. They haint got 
nothin’. If the Yankees are goin’ to free them and 
carry ’em all off to Lobeli or Loberia or sumwhat, I 
be doomed if I'll ever do another scratch of work. 
Besides, the ole ooman is of the same ’pinion, and 
Ide just like ter know what in cresshun the govern- 
ment ‘ll do then.’ 

“““The negroes are free now,’ said we, ‘and over 
twelve hundred thousand have died off since the war.’ 

‘“‘He started to his feet in astonishment at the news, 
exclaiming, ‘Ther devil; is that so, stranger?’ 

“ ¢Wall’ continued he, filling his pipe and putting in 
a fresh quid ‘I dunno as I care for these folks down at 
the salt water, as long as ther folks round here can’t 
git white men like me ter dewin’ nigger’s work.’ 

“ “Do you own the land around here,’ inquired we, 
glancing out of the door. 

“*Lor’, lor’, no,’ said he, apparently astonished at 
the question. ‘This land an’ cabin allers belonged to 
Col. Billin’s, on’y I’ve lived in this place so long he 
ses ter me t’other day, ses he, Mr. Parier, yer needn’t 
never move. So now I ’joy life.’ 

“*T should think since the war that it would be 
hard to get a comfortable living,’ said we. 

‘““ “No trouble ’tall, none ’tall. The ole ooman and 
I and Bill, we eat taters mos’ly, unless corn be handy, 
an’ we does it jist to bring up Bill to be inderpendent. 


386 APPENDIX 


A man ken liv’ on a mighty little if he jest sets about 
it. JI think more of my terbacker than onything 
otherwise an’ so does the ole ooman. So we jist ’joys 
life.’ 

‘“‘ ‘Were you in the army?’ returned we. 

““Tor’, no. I ’joyed life ter hum. ’Sides, when I 
did talk of goin’, Col. Billin’s said as maybe I’d hev 
ter fight along o’ niggers, an’ I never could belower 
myself to do that nohow.’ 

‘‘ “You would have joined the Northern Army then 
had it not been for the negroes, would you?’ asked we. 

““Not by a d— sight! Jine the Yankees!’ 
exclaimed he excitedly. ‘Me! A Southernor, born in 
Marion County, Georgia, and brought up with ’ligious 
principles. I put me on a levil with niggers and Yan- 
kees, and willin’ly cum ter be a slave! That’s a 
’sinuation, sir, ag’in my character. I’d like ter know 
how in the devil you dare cum ter a gemman’s house 
and ’sinuate ag’in his honor as a gemmen. [I allers 
defend my honor, sar, with my life; der you know 
that.’ 

‘““*T did not intend to offend you, sir, although I 
am not afraid of a dozen such white-livered raga- 
muffins as you are,’ said we. (A little brag when 
taken in the light of subsequent events.) 

“This was too much for the whole family, and with 
one accord they all arose to attack us. The old man 
made for his gun, which hung on hooks over the back 
door, and the old woman yelling ‘Oh, you d—d old 
coward!’ seized the iron shovel from the fireplace, and 
the boy rushed up and began to kick at us. 

“In such a predicament we were a little puzzled 
as to what to do next. ‘There was only one room in 
the hut, and the only way out was to pass the man 
with the gun. 


APPENDIX 387 


“*Give me my powder and shot, ole ooman,’ 
shouted the man. 

“ “Gie dad is gewin to salt yer, yer d—d old white 
nigger,’ shouted the son. 

“Thinking discretion to be, in this instance, the 
better part of valor, we marched by the old man, tell- 
ing him that he need not load that gun for us; and 
left the excited chevalier’s family all gazing out of the 
door after us, and shouting, ‘You’re a coward! Yer 
insult women and children! yer daresn’t fight at twelve 
paces,’ etc. 

‘“‘We regarded those ignorant, tobacco-worshipping 
‘poor whites’ as little better than wild beasts, and felt 
easier when their hut was out of sight, as we should 
have felt had it been a tiger’s den we had entered 
unarmed, instead of a human dwelling. Whatever 
ridicules we may incur for permitting the representa- 
tive of the Traveller to be seen easily defeated we do 
not know; but we have the satisfaction of knowing 
that the retreat was conducted in a more masterly 
manner than many retrograde movements of the war, 
for which the commanding generals of the army 
claimed high honor.” 


25 


Ill 


‘“‘ MEMORIES ”’ 
By John Greenleaf Whittier 


[Written in answer to a question by Russell Conwell as to why the 
Poet had never married.] 


BEAUTIFUL and happy girl, 
With step as light as summer air; 
Eyes glad with smiles and brow of pear] 
Shadowed by many a careless curl 
Of unconfined and flowing hair; 
A seeming child in everything, 
Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms, 
As Nature wears the smile of Spring 
When sinking into Summer’s arms. 


A mind rejoicing in the light 
Which melted through its graceful bower; 
Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright, 
And stainless in its holy white, 
Unfolding like a morning flower; 
A heart which like a fine-toned lute, 
With every breath of feeling woke, 
And, even when the tongue was mute, 
From eye and lip in music spoke. 


How thrills once more the lengthening chain 
Of memory at the thought of thee! 
Old hopes which long in dust have lain, 
Old dieams come thronging back again, 
And boyhood lives again in me; 
(388) 


APPENDIX 


I feel its glow upon my cheek, 
Its fulness of the heart is mine, 

As when I learned to hear thee speak, 
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine. 


I hear again thy low replies, 
I feel thy arm within my own, 
And timidly again uprise 
The fringed lids of hazel eyes, 
With soft brown tresses overblown. 
Ah! memories of summer eves, 
Of moonlit wave and willowy way, 
Of stars and flowers and dewy leaves, 
And smiles and tones more dear than they! 


Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled 
My picture of thy youth to see, 
When half a woman, half a child, 
Thy very artlessness beguilded, 
And folly’s self seemed wise in thee; 
I, too, can smile when o’er that hour 
The lights of memory backward stream, 
Yet feel the while that manhood’s power 
Is vainer than my boyhood’s dream. 


Years have passed on and left their trace, 
Of graver care and deeper thought; 
And unto me, the calm, cold face 
Of manhood, and to thee, the grace 
Of woman’s pensive beauty brought. 
More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, 
The schoolboy’s humble name has flown; 
Thine, in the green and quiet ways 
Of unobtrusive goodness known. 


390 


APPENDIX 


And wider yet in thought and deed 
Diverge our pathways, one in youth; 
Thine the Genevan’s sternest creed, 
While answers to my spirit’s need 
The Derby Dalesman’s simple truth. 
For thee the priestly rite and prayer, 
And holy day and solemn psalm; 
For me the silent reverence, where 
My brethren gather, slow and calm. 


Yet hath thy spirit left on me 
An impress. ‘Time has worn not out, 
And something of myself in thee, 
A shadow from the past I see. 
Lingering, even yet, thy way about; 
Not wholly can the heart unlearn 
That lesson of its better hours, 
Nor yet has Time’s dull footstep worn 
To common dust that path of flowers. 


Thus while at times before our eyes 
The shadows melt and fall apart, 
And smiling through them round us lies 
The warm light of our morning skies— 
The Indian summer of the heart! 
In secret sympathies of the mind, 
In founts of feeling which retain 
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find 
Our early dreams not wholly vain. 


IV 


SERMON OUTLINES 


but, in his early pastorate in Philadelphia, after 

his preaching on Sunday was over, he would 

sometimes ‘jot down an outline of what he had 
said. It is interesting to glance over the framework 
of some of the sermons that he delivered when he first 
came to Philadelphia. 


] ) ber in CONWELL never writes out a sermon 


March 2, 1884. 


“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”— 
Acts 16:31. 


ie 
Belief in a person means belief in his character. A 
captain. A guide.’ A father. Belief in Christ’s 


character. 
ye 


If we believe in a man’s character, we desire to be 
like him. Napoleon. Washington. Parent. Christ. 


3. 


If we desire to be like Him, we will naturally act 
like Him. Dime novels. Circus. Play. Jesse James. 
Grant’s cigars. Artemus Ward. Moody. Loyola. 
Charles V. Christ. 

Reading of Christ’s innocence makes us innocent. 
His charity. His truth. His love. His self-sacrifice. 

The influence on mankind leads them to sacrifice on 
sea or land. In war. In hospitals. Orphans. Aged. 
Heathen, Truth, Education, Peace, Slaves freed. 


(391) 


392 APPENDIX 
4, 


To be like Him is to be saved: Ist, from sinning; 
2d, from pain as sequence to sin; 3d, from punishment 
here; 4th, from punishment hereafter. Sincere amend- 
ment is repentance. 


5. 


Necessary that such example should be divine. 

No imperfections as we naturally copy them in our 
heroes. Charles V. 

Must be Son of God, that highest of earth (kings) 
may look up. 

Must be Son of God to enlist highest sympathy. 

We honor men in high positions, and heed their 
sayings. 

We sympathize with them more and it makes us 
like them. Garfield. William of Orange. Lincoln. 

Christ’s sufferings we sympathize with more than 
the thieves or others crucified, because He was divinely’ 
pure. Divinely innocent. He was the Son of God. 


November 9, 1884. 
“Why did Jesus ask them to tarry?’—Luke 24: 49. 


To whom did He speak? Peter. 
Impulsive, quick-tempered Christian. Forsakes 
Jesus. Denies Him. Goes fishing on Sacred day. 


Andrew. 
Business dull. Leaves Jesus to attend to that. 
Less religion and more business. 
James. 


Wants others to do their duty. Dissatisfied with 
Jesus. Thinks not of his own sins. 


APPENDIX 393 
John. 

Wants love. Wants to be nearest to Jesus. All 
sentiment; no work. 

James the Less. 

Merchant. Capernaum. Slides back into half 
dishonesty. Large figs on top. Speculation. Sharp 
in religion. Pays as little as possible for Jesus. 

Jude. 


Teacher. Loves to discuss with rabbis. Believes 
in Jesus and seeks controversy with unbelievers. Talks 
familiarly about God as his intimate companion. 

Matthew. 

Politician. Office-holder. All is fair in politics. 

Party spirit. Excuse to Jesus for going to caucus. 
Phalop. 

Chariot driver. Yearns to go to races. At Jericho 
amphitheater. Wild excitement. Excuse to Jesus. 

| Bartholomew. 

Loves dinners. Feasting. Gay company. Goes 
with crowd. lever with minority. 

Thomas. 


Cold calculator. Conservative. Skeptical. Doubts 
about miracles. About God. About Jesus. About 
Christians. 


Simon. 


The soldier. Make Christians by force. Wishes 
to be a soldier. The only brave life. 


394 APPENDIX 


All Together. 


Quarrel who shall be greatest. All forsake Him and 
flee. 


The Day of Pentecost. 


Peter now changed. Andrew not so swallowed up in 
business. Jameslooksin on himself. John less senti- 
mental. James the Less cheats no more. Matthew 
leaves politics. Philip, no more races. Bartholo- 
mew, less gay company. Thomas believes. Simon, 
braver than a soldier. 


November 30, 1884. 
“Think on these Things.’’-—Heb. 2:17. 


Ay 


If we wish to be in love with anything, we think on 
it. Painting. Mechanics. Professions. 


2. 


We study models near our comprehension and attain- 
able. Studying too far ahead or too high or too perfect 
discourages. 

Examples: Music, Oratory, Arts, etc. 

No man hath seen God. Why? 

It would dazzle, discourage, blast. So Christ came 
to be the image for us of the Father. 

He became man to show us what men can do. 

He was tempted in all points like as we. Think on 
Him. 

December 14, 1884. 
“What the Good Samaritan did not do.’”—Luke 10:33. 

1. Did not go by. 

2. Not ask creed of sufferer. 

3. Did not refuse to do a little. 


APPENDIX 395 
4. Did not abandon him because the landlord did 


nothing. 

5. That behavior established his creed better than 
argument. 

6. Scene at wounded man’s home. Waiting for his 
coming. 


The Samaritan comes in with the news. 

The family (children and all) off to Jerusalem to 
worship. 

See priest. (Hate him.) 

See Levite. (Hate him.) 

Gorgeous Temple. Grand theories. But they ask. 

Where is the Samaritan’s church? No matter about 
theories; we will go to a cave with the Samaritan. He 
must be right. 


“Quench Not the Spirit.’ 
1. 


Two dangerous periods: Ist, When newly awakened. 
2d, When returning to first love. 

The barren fields. The spirit of Spring. The first 
blade and bud, easily crushed. Babe easily killed. 


2. 


Don’t quench this first impulse of life. Indications 
of it. Feelings of different inquirers. Easily quenched 
by bad company, bad books, bad places. 

Don’t quench it in others. The foot on the bud. 
Hand over babe’s mouth. Crushing out budding 
Christian life by ridicule, persecution. It is murder. 
The miner’s lamp put out by others. His death. 
Killing little trees destroys all its possible fruits. 

Don’t take inquirers where they will be quenched. 
Theaters, book, sleepy churches. Counterfeit 
Christians. 


396 APPENDIX 
o. 


Don’t quench returning life after backsliding. Prodi- 
gal impulse to return. The storm center dispersed. 

The signs of the dying. 

Coldness. Seeing double. Blind. 

Lie down with snakes. Insane believing wrong is 
right. 

Conscience disagrees with Bible. Given over to 
hardness of heart. 

The sign of returning life. 

Drowning one. Accusation of Conscience. 

Longing. Gloom. 

Quench it not. Go to church. The last throw. 
The last match. 

Quench it not in others. The keeper of an insane 
friend. Encouraging every gleam. Right mind 
showed him his palace was a prison. Longing to go 
home. Encouraged by his attendant. 

\ At last He goes Home: Joy of right mind. 


February 24, 1884. 
“Taking our friends to Christ.”—Matt. 17:16. 


te 
The Boy’s Symptoms. 
Disobedient. Runaway. Play on dangerous water. 
With fire. Profane. 
Vile Habits. 
Drink. Crime. Prison. 


2. 


The cures tried. Medicine. Persuasion. Hiring. 
Precept. Hiding bottle. Whipping. ‘Tears. 


APPENDIX 397 
3. 


The Father’s talk with the multitude. The testimony 
to Jesus’ power. The sick daughter. Crippled 
father. The runaway son. The drunkard. The 
bad husband. The cruel father. The jealous wife. 
The profane. The disobedient. The criminal. 


4. 


Goes to Disciples. 

Peter says whip him. Has tried it. 
Philip says hire him. Has tried it. 
Nathanael says teach him. Has tried it. 
Judas says let him go. Has tried it. 
John says love him, Has tried it. 


Then take him to Jesus. 


The interview. The father bringing his son. The 
cure. The return home. An example for us. 


October 21, 1883. 
‘What is a Church for?’—IJ Cor. 12:8. 


i 
Composed of believers. Who are believers? 


2. 


Hence is to assist in serving man for that is serving 
God. Church does this in two ways. 


3. 


Helps Christian growth within. Preaching. Sunday- 
school. Singing. Praying. Sociability in gatherings, 
fairs, etc. ‘Trains prayerless, indolent. 


398 APPENDIX 
4, 


Help outside. Community safer, happier, less crime, 
more friendships. Better neighbors. More Christians. 


5. 


Helps by strength. Union. Multitude of Coun- 
selors. Special receptacle of Spirit. The Spirit is the 
Church. Because He has given us of His Spirit. 


November 4, 1883. 


About the universal sin of ingratitude. But not 
worth writing out. A dead, dead failure as a sermon. 
The Lord help me to do better next Sunday. 


These sermons were wonderfully filled out with 
copious illustrations rounded to a symmetrical whole, 
and the central truth forcefully driven home at the 
conclusion. 


V 


ForM oF SERVICE USED IN CEREMONY OF 
DEDICATING INFANTS 


Question.—Do you now come to the Lord’s house to 
present your child (children) to the Lord? Answer.— 
We do. 

Questvon.—Will you promise before the Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that you will, so far as in you lieth, 
teach this child the Holy Scriptures and bring him (her) 
up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Will 
you train his (her) mind to respect the services of 
the Lord’s house, and to live in compliance with the 
teachings and example of our Lord? When he reaches 
the years of understanding, will you show him the 
necessity of repentance, explain to him the way of 
salvation, and urge upon him the necessity of con- 
version, baptism and union with the visible Church 
of Christ? Answer.—We will. 

Question.—By what name do you propose to register 
him (her or them) at this time? Answer.— 

* * * x * * x 


Beloved: These parents have come to the House of 
God at this time to present this child (these children) 
before the Lord in imitation of the presentation of the 
infant Jesus in the Temple as recorded by the Evan- 
gelist Luke, saying, ‘‘When the days of her (Mary’s) 
purification according to the law of Moses were accom- 
plished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him 
to the Lord, and to offer sacrifice according to that 
which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle 


(399) 


400 APPENDIX 


doves or two young pigeons.”’ These parents have 
learned from the Lord Jesus himself that he desires 
that all children should come unto him that he might 
put his hands on them and pray. ‘Therefore, in 
obedience to the Scriptures, the parents are here to 
present this child unto the Lord Jesus in spirit, that 
He may take him up in his arms and bless him. 

We will turn, therefore, to the Holy Scriptures for 
direction, as they are our only rule of faith and prac- 
tice, and ascertain the wishes and commandments of 
the Lord in this matter: 


I Sam. i: 26, 27, 28: 


‘‘And Hannah said, O my Lord, as thy soul liveth, 
my Lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, 
praying unto the Lord. 

“For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given 
me my petition which I asked of him. 

“Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as 
long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And 
he worshipped the Lord there.”’ 


Mark 2:13, 14, 18: 


‘‘And they brought young children to him, that he 
should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those 
that brought them. 

‘“But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, 
and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the 
kingdom of God. 

“Verily I say unto you Whosoever shall not receive 
the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter 
therein. 

“And he took them up in his arms, put his hands 
upon them, and blessed them.” 


APPENDIX 401 
Luke xviii: 16, 16, 17: 


“And they brought young children to him, that he 
should touch them; but when his disciples saw it, they 
rebuked them. 

‘But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; 
for of such is the kingdom of God. 

“Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive 
the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise 
enter therein.” 


Matt. xviii: 2-6, 14: 


“And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set 
him in the midst of them. 

“And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be 
converted and become as little children, ye shall not 
enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

‘“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this 
little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of 
heaven. 

-** And whoso shall receive one such little child in my 
name receiveth me. 

‘“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones 
which believe in me, it were better for him that a 
millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were 
drowned in the depth of the sea. 

‘Even so it is not the will of your father which is 
in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”’ 


Therefore, believing it is wise and that it is a sacred 
duty to dedicate our precious little ones to God in this 
solemn manner; believing that all the dear children 
are especially loved by Christ; and that when taken 
from this world before active, intentional participation 
in sin, they are saved by His merciful grace; and 


402 APPENDIX 


believing that Christ by His example, and the apostles 
by their direct teaching, reserve the sacred ordinance 
of baptism for repentant believers, we will now unitedly 
ask the Lord to accept the consecration of this child 
(children), and to take him in His spiritual arms and 
bless him. 


PRAYER. 
Hymn. 
BENEDICTION. 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


(403) 


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ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


iH hear this story over again. Indeed, this lecture 

has become a study in psychology; it often breaks 

all rules of oratory, departs from the precepts of 
rhetoric, and yet remains the most popular of any 
lecture I have delivered in the fifty-seven years of my 
public life. I have sometimes studied for a year upon 
a lecture and made careful research, and then presented 
the lecture just once—never delivered it again. I put 
too much work on it. But this had no work on it— 
thrown together perfectly at random, spoken offhand 
without any special preparation, and it succeeds 
when the thing we study, work over, adjust to a plan, 
is an entire failure. 

The “Acres of Diamonds” which I have mentioned 
through so many years are to»‘found in this city, 
and you are to find them. Many have found them. 
And what man has done, man can do. I could not 
find anything better to illustrate my thought than a 
story I have told over and over again, and which is 
now found in books in nearly every library. 

In 1870 we went down the Tigris River. We hired 
a guide at Bagdad to show us Persepolis, Nineveh and 
Babylon, and the ancient countries of Assyria as far as 
the Arabian Gulf. He was well acquainted with the 
land, but he was one of those guides who love to enter- 
tain their patrons; he was like a barber that tells you 
many stories in order to keep your mind off the scratch- 
ing and the scraping. He told me so many stories that 


(405) 


| AM astonished that so many people should care to 


406 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


I grew tired of his telling them and I refused to listen 
—looked away whenever he commenced; that made 
the guide quite angry. JI remember that toward 
evening he took his Turkish cap off his head and 
swung it around in the air. The gesture I did not 
understand and I did not dare look at him for fear I 
should become the victim of another story. But, 
although I am not a woman, I did look, and the instant 
I turned my eyes upon that worthy guide he was off 
again. Said he, FT. will tell you a story now which 
I reserve for my particular friends!” So then, count- 
ing myself a particular friend, I listened, and I have 
piways been glad I did. 

y “He said there once lived not far from the River 
Frus an ancient Persian by the name of Al Hafed. 
‘He said that Al Hafed owned a very large farm with 
orchards, grain fields and gardens. He was a con- 
tented and wealthy man-—contented because he was 
wealthy, and wealthy because he was contented. 
One day there visited this old farmer one of those 
ancient Buddhist priests, and he sat down by Al 
Hafed’s fire and told that old farmer how this world 
of ours was made. He said that this world was once a 
mere bank of fog, which is scientifically true, and he 
said that the Almighty thrust his finger into the bank 
of fog and then began slowly to move his finger around 
and gradually to increase the speed of his finger until 
at last he whirled that bank of fog into a solid ball of 
fire, and it went rolling through the universe, burning 
its way through other cosmic banks of fog, until it 
condensed the moisture without, and fell in floods of 
rain upon the heated surface and cooled the outward 
crust. Then the internal flames burst through the 
cooling crust and threw up the mountains and made 
the hills and the valley of this wonderful world of ours. 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS _ 407 


If this internal melted mass burst out and cooled very 
quickly it became granite; that which cooled less 
quickly became silver; and less quickly, gold; and 
after gold diamonds were made. Said the old priest, 
‘* A diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight.” 

This is a scientific truth also. You all know that a 
diamond is pure carbon, actually deposited sunlight— 
and he said another thing I would not forget: he 
declared that a diamond is the last and highest of 
God’s mineral creations, as a woman is the last and 
highest of God’s animal creations. I suppose that is 
the reason why the two have such a liking for each 
other. And the old priest told Al Hafed that if he 
had a handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole 
county, and with a mine of diamonds he could place 
his children upon thrones through the influence of 
their great wealth. Al Hafed heard all about diamonds 
and how much they were worth, and went to his bed 
that night a poor man—not that he had lost anything, 
but poor because he was discontented and discontented 
because he thought he was poor. He said: ‘‘I want a 
mine of diamonds!” So he lay awake all night, and 
early in the morning sought out the priest. Now I 
know from experience that a priest when awakened 
early in the morning is cross. He awoke that priest 
out of his dreams and said to him, ‘‘ Will you tell me 
where I can find diamonds?” ‘The priest said, 
‘‘Diamonds? What do you want with diamonds?” 
‘“‘T want to be immensely rich,” said Al Hafed, “‘but I 
don’t know where to go.’”’ ‘‘ Well,” said the priest, ‘‘if 
you will find a river that runs over white sand between 
high mountains, in those sands you will always see 
diamonds.” ‘Do you really believe that-there is 
such a river?” ‘‘Plenty of them, plenty of them; all 
you have to do is just go and find them, then you have 


408 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


them.”’ Al Hafed said, “I will go.” So he sold his 
farm, collected his money at interest, left his family in 
charge of a neighbor, and away he went in search of 
diamonds. He began very properly, to my mind, at 
the Mountains of the Moon. Afterwards he went 
around into Palestine, then wandered on into Europe, 
and at last, when his money was all spent, and he was 
in rags, wretchedness and poverty, he stood on the 
shore of that bay in Barcelona, Spain, when a tidal 
wave came rolling in through the Pillars of Hercules 
and the poor, afflicted, suffering man could not resist 
the awful temptation to cast himself into that incom- 
ing tide, and he sank beneath its foaming crest, never 
to rise in this life again. 

When that old guide had told me that very sad 
story, he stopped the camel I was riding and went 
back to fix the baggage on one of the other camels, 
and I remember thinking to myself, ‘‘Why did he 
reserve that for his particular friends?” ‘There seemed 
to be no beginning, middle or end—nothing to it. 
That was the first story I ever heard told or read in 
which the hero was killed in the first chapter. I 
had but one chapter of that story and the hero was 
dead. When the guide came back and took up the 
halter of my camel again, he went right on with the 
same story. He said that Al Hafed’s successor led 
his camel out into the garden to drink, and as that 
camel put its nose down into the clear water of the 
garden brook Al Hafed’s successor noticed a curious 
flash of light from the sands of the shallow stream, 
and reaching in he pulled out a black stone having 
an eye of light that reflected all the colors of the rain- 
bow, and he took that curious pebble into the house 
and left it on the mantel, then went on his way and 
forgot all about it. A few days after that, this same 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 409 


old priest who told Al Hafed how diamonds were 
made, came in to visit his successor, when he saw 
that flash of light from the mantel. He rushed up 
and said, ‘‘Here is a diamond—here is a diamond! 
Has Al Hafed returned?” ‘No, no; Al Hafed has 
not returned and that is not a diamond; that is 
nothing but a stone; we found it right out here in 
our garden.” ‘But I know a diamond when I see 
it,’ said he; ‘‘that is a diamond!” 

Then together they rushed to the garden and 
stirred up the white sands with their fingers and found 
others more beautiful, more valuable diamonds than 
the first, and thus, said the guide to me, were dis- 
covered the diamond mines of Golconda, the most 
magnificent diamond mines in all the history of man- 
kind, exceeding the Kimberley in its value. The 
great Kohinoor diamond in England’s crown jewels 
and the largest crown diamond on earth in Russia’s 
crown jewels, which I had often hoped she would 
have to sell before they had peace with Japan, came 
from that mine, and when the old guide had called 
my attention to that wonderful discovery he took 
his Turkish cap off his head again and swung it around 
in the air to call my attention to the moral. Those 
Arab guides have a moral to each story, though the 
stories are not always moral. He said had Al Hafed 
remained at home and dug in his own cellar or in his 
own garden, instead of wretchedness, starvation, 
poverty and death in a strange land, he would have 
had ‘‘acres of diamonds’’—for every acre, yes, every 
shovelful of that old farm afterwards revealed the 
gems which since have decorated the crowns of 
monarchs.} When he had given the moral to his story, 
I saw why he had reserved this story for his ‘‘ particular 
friends.” I didn’t tell him I could see it; I was not 


\ % : Mh / 


410 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


going to tell that old Arab that I could see it. For 
it was that mean old Arab’s way of going around a 
thing, like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he 
did not dare say directly, that there was a certain 
young man that day traveling down the Tigris River 
that might better be at home in America. I didn’t 
tell him I could see it. 

I told him his story reminded me of one, and I 
told it to him quick. I told him about that man out 
in California, who, in 1847, owned a ranch out there. 
He read that gold had been discovered in Southern 
California, and he sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter 
and started off to hunt for gold. Colonel Sutter 
put a mill on the little stream in that farm and one 
day his little girl brought some wet sand from the 
raceway of the mill into the house and placed it 
before the fire to dry, and as that sand was falling 
through the little girl’s fingers a visitor saw the first 
shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered 
in California; and the man who wanted the gold 
had sold this ranch and gone away, never to return. 
I delivered this lecture two years ago in California, 
in the city that stands near that farm, and they told 
me that the mine is not exhausted yet, and that a 
one-third owner of that farm has been getting during 
these recent years twenty dollars of gold every fifteen 
minutes of his life, sleeping or waking. Why, you 
and I would enjoy an income like that! 

But the best illustration that I have now of this 
thought was found here in Pennsylvania. There 
was a man living in Pennsylvania who owned a farm 
here and he did what I-should do if I had a farm in 
Pennsylvania—he sold it. But before he sold it he 
concluded to secure employment collecting coal oil 
for his cousin in Canada. They first discovered 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS All 


coal oil there. So this farmer in Pennsylvania decided 
that he would apply for a position with his cousin 
in Canada. Now, you see, this farmer was not alto- 
gether a foolish man. He did not leave his farm 
until he had something else to do. Of all the simpletons 
the stars shine on there is none more foolish than a 
man who leaves one job before he has obtained another. 
And that has especial reference to gentlemen of my 
profession, and has no reference to a man seeking a 
divorce. So I say this old farmer did not leave one 
job until he had obtained another. He wrote to 
Canada, but his cousin replied that he could not 
engage him because he did not know anything about 
the oil business. ‘‘ Well, then,’’ said he, ‘‘I will under- 
stand it.’’? So he set himself at the study of the whole 
subject. He began at the second day of the creation, 
he studied the subject from the primitive vegetation 
to the coal oil stage, until he knew all about it. Then 
he wrote to his cousin and said, ‘““Now I understand 
the oil business.”’ And his cousin replied to him, 
‘‘ All right, then, come on.”’ : 

That man, by the record of the county, sold his 
farm for eight hundred and thirty-three dollars—even 
money, ‘‘no cents.’ He had scarcely gone from that 
farm before the man who purchased it went out to 
arrange for the watering the cattle and he found that 
the previous owner had arranged the matter very © 
nicely. There is a stream running down the hillside 
there, and the previous owner had gone out and put 
a plank across that stream at an angle, extending 
across the brook and down. edgewise a few inches 
under the surface of the water. The purpose of the 
plank across that brook was to throw over to the 
other bank a dreadful-looking scum through which 
the cattle would not put their noses to drink above 


412 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


the plank, although they would drink the water on 
one side below it. Thus that man who had gone to 
Canada had been himself damming back for twenty- 
three years a flow of coal oil which the State Geologist 
of Pennsylvania declared officially, as early as 1870, 
was then worth to our state a hundred millions of 
dollars. The city of Titusville now stands on that 
farm and those Pleasantville wells flow on, and that 
farmer who had studied all about the formation of 
oil since the second day of God’s creation clear down 
to the present time, sold that farm for $833, no cents— ~ 
again I say, ‘‘no sense.” 

But I need another illustration, and I found that 
in Massachusetts, and I am sorry I did, because 
that is my old state. This young man I mention 
went out of the state to study—went down to Yale 
College and studied mines and mining. ‘They paid 
him fifteen dollars a week during his last year for 
training students who were behind their classes in 
mineralogy, out of hours, of course, while pursuing 
his own studies. But when he graduated they raised 
his pay from fifteen dollars to forty-five dollars and 
offered him a professorship. ‘Then he went straight 
home to his mother and said, ‘‘ Mother, I won’t work 
for forty-five dollars a week. What is forty-five 
dollars a week for a man with a brain like mine! 
Mother, let’s go out to California and stake out gold 
claims and be immensely rich.” ‘Now,’ said his 
mother, ‘‘it is just as well to be happy as it is to be 
rich.” | 

But as he was the only son he had his way—they 
always do; and they sold out in Massachusetts and 
went to Wisconsin, where he went into the employ 
of the Superior Copper Mining Company, and he 
was lost from sight in the employ of that company 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 413 


at fifteen dollars a week again. He was also to have 
an interest in any mines that he should discover for 
that company. But I do not believe that he has 
ever discovered a mine—I do not know anything 
about it, but I do not believe he has. I know he 
had scarcely gone from the old homestead before the 
farmer who had bought the homestead went out to 
dig potatoes, and as he was bringing them in in a 
large basket through the front gateway, the ends of 
the stone wall came so near together at the gate 
that the basket hugged very tight. So he set the 
basket on the ground and pulled, first on one side 
and then on the other side. Our farms in Massachusetts 
are mostly stone walls, and the farmers have to be 
economical with their gateways in order to have 
some place to put the stones. That basket hugged 
so tight there that as he was hauling it through he 
noticed in the upper stone next the gate a block of 
native silver, eight inches square; and this professor 
of mines and mining and mineralogy, who would 
not work for forty-five dollars a week, when he sold 
that homestead in Massachusetts, sat right on that 
stone to make the bargain. He was brought up there; 
he had gone back and forth by that piece of silver, 
rubbed it with his sleeve, and it seemed to say, ‘‘Come 
now, now, now, here is a hundred thousand dollars. 
Why not take me?” But he would not take it. There 
was no silver in Newburyport; it was all away off— 
well, I don’t know where; he didn’t, but somewhere 
else—and he was a professor of mineralogy. 

I do not know of anything I would enjoy better 
than to take the whole time tonight telling of blunders 
like that I have heard professors make. Yet I wish 
I knew what that man is doing out there in Wisconsin. 
I can imagine him out there, as he sits by his fireside, 


414 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


and he is saying to his friends, ‘‘Do you know that 
man Conwell that lives in Philadelphia?’ ‘Oh, 
yes, I have heard of him.”’ ‘And do you know that 
man Jones that lives in that city?” ‘Yes, I have 
heard of him.” And then he begins to laugh and 
laugh and says to his friends, ‘“They have done the, 
same thing I did, precisely.” And that spoils the \ 
whole joke, because you and I have done it. | 

“Ninety out of every hundred people here have 
made that mistake this very day. I say you ought 
to be rich; you have no right to be poor. ‘To live in 
Philadelphia and not be rich is a misfortune, and it is 
doubly a misfortune, because you could have been 
rich just as well as be poor. Philadelphia furnishes 
so many opportunities. You ought to be rich. But 
persons with certain religious prejudice will ask, 
‘‘How can you spend your time advising the rising 
generation to give their time to getting money— 
dollars and cents—the commercial spirit?”’ 

Yet I must say that you ought to spend time getting 
rich. You and I know there are some things more 
valuable than money; of course, we do. Ah, yes! 
By a heart made unspeakably sad by a grave on 
which the autumn leaves now fall, I know there are 
some things higher and grander and sublimer than 
money. Well does the man know, who has suffered, 
that there are some things sweeter and holier and 
‘more sacred than gold. Nevertheless, the man of 
‘common sense also knows that there is not any one 
-of those things that is not greatly enhanced by the 
use of money. Money is power. Love is the grandest 
‘thing on God’s earth, but fortunate the lover who has 
‘plenty of money. Money is power; money has 
‘powers; and for a man to say, “‘I do not want money,” 
-is to say, ‘‘I do not wish to do any good to my fellow- 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 415 


men.” It is absurd thus to talk. It is absurd to 
disconnect them. ‘This is a wonderfully great life, : 
and you ought to spend your time getting money,’ 
because of the power there is in money. And yet’ 
this religious prejudice is so great that some people’ 
think it is a great honor to be one of God’s poor.: 
I am looking in the faces of people who think just’ 
that way. I heard a man once say in a prayer-meeting 
that he was thankful that he was one of God’s poor, 
and then I silently wondered what his wife would 
say to that speech, as she took in washing to support 
the man while he sat and smoked on the veranda. 
I don’t want to see any more of that kind of God’s 
poor. Now, when a man could have been rich just 
as well, and he is now weak because he is poor, he 
has done some great wrong; he has been untruthful 
to himself; he has been unkind to his fellowmen. 
We ought to get rich if we can by honorable and°* 
Christian methods, and these are the only methods: 
that sweep us quickly toward the goal of riches. 

I remember, not many years ago a young theo- 
logical student who came into my office and said to 
me that he thought it was his duty to come in and 
“labor with me.” I asked him what had happened, 
and he said: ‘‘I feel it is my duty to come in and 
speak to you, sir, and say that the Holy Scriptures 
declare that money is the root of all evil.’”’ I asked 
him where he found that saying, and he said he found 
it in the Bible. I asked him whether he had made 
a new Bible, and he said, no, he had not gotten a 
new Bible, that it was in the old Bible. ‘‘ Well,” 
I said, “if it is in my Bible, I never saw it. Will 
you please get the text-book and let me see it?”’ He 
left the room and soon came stalking in with his 
Bible open, with all the bigoted pride of the narrow 


416 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


sectarian, who founds his creed on some misinter- 
pretation of Scripture, and he puts the Bible down 
on the table before me and fairly squealed into my 
ear, ‘“‘There it is. You can read it for yourself.” 
I said to him, ‘‘ Young man, you will learn, when you 
get a little older, that you cannot trust another denomi- 
nation to read the Bible for you.” I said, ‘‘Now, 
you belong to another denomination. Please read 
it to me, and remember that you are taught in a 
school where emphasis is exegesis.” So he took the 
Bible and read it: ‘‘The love of money is the root 
of all evil.” Then he had it right. The Great Book 
has come back into the esteem and love of the people, 
and into the respect of the greatest minds of earth, 
and now you can quote it and rest your life and your 
death on it without more fear. So, when he quoted 
right from the Scriptures he quoted the truth. ‘The 
-love of money is the root of all evil.’”’ Oh, that is it. 
-It is the worship of the means instead of the end, 
-though you cannot reach the end without the means. 
‘When a man makes an idol of the money instead of 
-the purposes for which it may be used, when he 
‘squeezes the dollar until the eagle squeals, then it 
.is made the root of all evil. Think, if you only had 
the money, what you could do for your wife, your 
child, and for your home and your city. Think 
how soon you could endow the Temple College yonder 
if you only had the money and the disposition to 
give it; and yet, my friend, people say you and I 
should not spend the time getting rich. How incon- 
-sistent the whole thing is. We ought to be rich, 
‘because money has power. I think the best thing 
for me to do is to illustrate this, for if I say you ought 
-to get rich, I ought, at least, to suggest how it is 
done. We get a prejudice against rich men because 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS AIT 


of the lies that are told about them. The lies that - 
are told about Mr. Rockefeller because he has two 
hundred million dollars—so many believe them; yet 
how false is the representation of that man to the 
world. How little we can teil what is true nowadays 
when newspapers try to sell their papers entirely on 
some sensation! The way they lie about the rich men 
is something terrible, and I do not know that there 
is anything to illustrate this better than what the 
newspapers now say about the city of Philadelphia. 
A young man came to me the other day and said, 
“Tf Mr. Rockefeller, as you think, is a good man, 
why is it that everybody says so much against him?”’ 
It is because he has gotten ahead of us; that is the 
whole of it—just gotten ahead of us. Why is it 
Mr. Carnegie is criticised so sharply by an envious 
world? Because he has gotten more than we have. 
If a man knows more than I know, don’t I incline to 
criticise somewhat his learning? Let a man stand 
in a pulpit and preach to thousands, and if I have 
fifteen people in my church, and they’re all asleep, 
don’t I criticise him? We always do that to the 
man who gets ahead of us. Why, the man you are 
criticising has one hundred millions, and you have 
fifty cents, and both of you have just what you are 
worth. One of the richest men in this country came 
into my home and sat down in my parlor and said: 
‘Did you see all those lies about my family in the 
paper?” ‘‘Certainly I did; I knew they were lies 
when I saw them.” ‘‘Why do they lie about me the 
way they do?” ‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘if you will 
give me your check for one hundred millions, I will 
take all the lies along with it.” ‘Well,’ said he, 
“T don’t see any sense in their thus talking about 
my family and myself. Conwell, tell me frankly, 


\ 
\ 


418 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


what do you think the American people think of 
me?” ‘‘Well,” said I, ‘‘they think you are the 
blackest-hearted villain that ever trod the soil!” 
“But what can I do about it?’ There is nothing he 
can do about it, and yet he is one of the sweetest 
Christian men I ever knew. If you get a hundred 
millions you will have the lies; you will be lied about, 
and you can judge your SUC GES lt any line by the 
lies that are told about you.” I say that you ought 
to be rich. But there are ever coming to me young 
men who say, ‘“‘I would like to go into business, but 
I cannot.” ‘Why not?” ‘Because I have no 
capital to begin on.’’ Capital, capital to begin on! 
What! young man! _ Living in. Philadelphia and 
looking at this wealthy generation, all of whom began 
as poor boys, and you want capital to begin on? 
-It is fortunate for you that you have no capital. I 
-am glad you have no money. I pity a rich man’s 
-son. A rich man’s son in these days of ours occupies 
.a very difficult position. They are to be pitied. 
-A rich man’s son cannot know the very best things 
-In human life. He cannot. ‘The statistics of 
Massachusetts show us that not one out of seventeen 
rich men’s sons ever die rich. They are raised in © 
luxury, they die in poverty. Even if a rich man’s 
son retains his father’s money even then he cannot 
know the best things of life. 

A young man in our college yonder asked me to 
‘formulate for him what I thought was the happiest 
_hour in a man’s history, and I studied it long and 
. came back convinced that the happiest hour that any 
-man ever sees in any earthly matter is when a young 
‘man takes his bride over the threshold of the door, 
-for the first time, of the house he himself has earned 
and built, when he turns to his bride and with an 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 419 


eloquence greater than any language of mine, he 
sayeth to his wife, ‘‘My loved one, I earned this: 
home myself; I earned it all. It is all mine, and I: 
divide it with thee.” That is the grandest moment: 
a human heart may ever see. But a rich man’s son. 
cannot know that. He goes into a finer mansion, 
it may be, but he is obliged to go through the house 
and say, ‘Mother gave me this, mother gave me that, 
my mother gave me that, my mother gave me that,” 
until his wife wishes Ehe had married his mother. 
Oh, I pity a rich man’s son. I do. 4 Until he gets 
so far along in his dudeism that he gets-his arms up 
like that and can’t get them down. Didn’t you ever 
see any of them astray at Atlantic City? I saw one 
of these scarecrows once and I never tire thinking 
about it. I was at Niagara Falls lecturing, and after 
the lecture I went to the hotel, and when I went up 
to the desk there stood there a millionaire’s son from 
New York. He was an indescribable specimen of 
anthropologic potency. He carried a gold-headed 
cane under his arm—more in its head than he had 
in his. I do not believe I could describe the young 
man if I should try. But still I must say that he 
wore an eye-glass he could not see through; patent 
leather shoes he could not walk in, and pants he 
could not sit down in—dressed like a grasshopper! 
Well, this human cricket came up to the clerk’s desk 
just as I came in. He adjusted his unseeing eye- 
glass in this wise and lisped to the clerk, because 
it’s ‘‘Hinglish, you know,” to lisp: ‘‘Thir, thir, will 
you have the kindness to fuhnish me with thome 
papah and thome envelopehs!” The clerk measured 
that man quick, and he pulled out a drawer and 
took some envelopes and paper and cast them across 
the counter and turned away to his books. You 


27 


420 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


should have seen that specimen of humanity when 
the paper and envelopes came across the counter— 
he whose wants had always been anticipated by 
servants. He adjusted his unseeing eye-glass and 
he yelled after that clerk: ‘‘Come back here thir, 
come right back here. Now, thir, will you order a 
thervant to take that papah and thothe envelopes 
and carry them to yondah dethk.’’ Oh, the poor 
miserable, contemptible American monkey! He 
couldn’t carry paper and envelopes twenty feet. 
I suppose he could not get his arms down. ,I have 
no pity for such travesties of human nature. ‘If you 
have no capital, I am glad of it. You don't need 
capital; you need common sense, not copper cents. 

A. T. Stewart, the great princely merchant of 
New York, the richest man in America in his time, 
was a poor boy; he had a dollar and a half and went 
into the mercantile business. But he lost eighty- 
seven and a half cents of his first dollar and a half 
because he bought some needles and thread and 
buttons to sell, which people didn’t want. 

Are you poor? It is because you are not wanted and 
‘are left on your own hands. There was the great 
_lesson. Apply it whichever way you will it comes to 
-every single person’s life, young or old. He did not 
. know what people needed, and consequently bought 
something they didn’t want, and had the goods left 
on his hands a dead loss. A. T. Stewart learned there 
the great lesson of his mercantile life and said, ‘‘I will 
never buy anything more until I first learn what the 
people want; then I’ll make the purchase.” He went 
around to the doors and asked them what they did 
want, and when he found out what they wanted, he 
invested his sixty-two and a half cents and began to 
supply ‘‘a known demand.” I care not what your 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 421 


profession or occupation in life may be; I care not 
whether you are a lawyer, a doctor, a housekeeper, 
teacher or whatever else, the principle is precisely the 


same. We must know what the world needs first and -_,/ | 


is almost certain. | A. T. Stewart went on until he was’ 
worth forty millions. ‘‘Well,” you wii! say, ‘‘a man 
‘ean do that in New York, but cannot do it here in 
Philadelphia.” The statistics very carefully gathered 
in New York in 1889\showed one hundred and seven 
millionaires in the city worth over ten millions apiece. 
It was remarkable and people think they must go 
there to get rich. Out of that one hundred and seven 
millionaires only seven of them made their money in 
New York, and the others moved to New York after 
their fortunes were made, and sixty-seven out of the 
remaining hundred made their fortunes in towns of 
less than six thousand people, and the richest man in 
the country at that time lived in a town of thirty-five 
hundred inhabitants, and always lived there and 
never moved away. It is not so much where you are | 
as what you are. But at the same time if the largeness 
of the city comes into the problem, then remember it is 
the smaller city that furnishes the, great opportunity 
to make the millions of money. | The best illustration 
that I can give is in reference to John Jacob Astor, who 
was a poor boy and who made all the money of the 
Astor family. He made more than his successors have 
ever earned, and yet he once held a mortgage on a 
millinery store in New York, and because the people 
could not make enough money to pay the interest and 
the rent, he foreclosed the mortgage and took possession 
of the store and went into partnership with the man 
who had failed. He kept the same stock, did not give 
them a dollar of capital, and he left them alone and 


then invest ‘anf A to supply that need, and success ‘// 


we a 


422 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


went out and sat down upon a bench in the park. 
Out there on that bench in the park he had the most 
important, and, to my mind, the pleasantest part’ of 
that partnership business. He was watching the 
ladies as they went by; and where is the man that 
wouldn’t get rich at that business? But when John 
Jacob Astor saw a lady pass, with her shoulders back 
and her head up, as if she did not care if the whole 
world looked on her, he studied her bonnet; and 
before that bonnet was out of sight he knew the shape 
of the frame and the color of the trimmings, the curl 
of the—something on a bonnet. Sometimes I try to 
describe a woman’s bonnet, but it is of little use, for it 
would be out of style tomorrow night. So John 
Jacob Astor went to the store and said: ‘‘Now, put 
in the show window just such a bonnet as I describe 
to you because,”’ said he, ‘‘I have just seen a lady who 
likes just such a bonnet. Do not make up any more 
till I come back.” And he went out again and sat on 
that bench in the park, and another lady of a different 
form and complexion passed him with a bonnet of 
different shape and color, of course. ‘‘ Now,” said he, 
‘nut such a bonnet as that in the show window.” 
He didn’t fill his show window with hats and bonnets 
which drive people away and then sit in the back of 
the store and bawl because the people go somewhere 


| else to trade. He didn’t put a hat or bonnet in that 
_ show window the like of which he had not seen before 
_it was made up. 

“Tour city especially there are great opportunities 


for manufacturing, and the time has come when the 
line is drawn very sharply between the stockholders of 
the factory and their employés. Now, friends, there 
has also come a discouraging gloom upon this country 
and the laboring men are beginning to feel that they 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 423 


are being held down by a crust over their heads through 
which they find it impossible to break, and the aristo- 
cratic money-owner himself is so far above that he will 
never descend to their assistance. That is the 
thought that is in the minds of our people. But, 
friends, never in the history of our country was there 
an opportunity so great for the poor man to get rich 
as there is now and in the city of Philadelphia. The 
very fact that they get discouraged is what prevents 


them from getting rich. That is all there is to it. The- 
road is open, and let us keep it open between the poor . 


and the rich. I know that the labor unions have two 
great problems to contend with, and there is only one 
way to solve them. The labor unions are doing as 
much to prevent its solving as are the capitalists today, 
and there are positively two sides to it. The labor 
union has two difficulties; the first one is that it began 
to make a labor scale for all classes on a par, and they 


Fi 


scale down a man that can earn five dollars a'day to 


chs 


two and a half a day, in order to level up to him an 


imbecile that cannot earn fifty cents a day. That is 
one of the most dangerous and discouraging things for 
the working man. He cannot get the results of his 
work if he do better work or higher work or work 
longer; that is a dangerous thing, and in order to get 
every laboring man free and every American equal to 
every other American, let the laboring man ask what 
he is worth and get it—not let any capitalist say to 
him: ‘‘ You shall work for me for half of what you are 
worth; nor let any labor organization say: ‘‘ You 
shall work for the capitalist for half your worth.” 
Be a man, be independent, and then shall the laboring 
man find the road ever open from poverty to wealth. 
The other difficulty that the labor union has to con- 
sider, and this problem they have to solve themselves, 


ax 
ie 


} 


424 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


is the kind of orators who come and talk to them 
about the oppressive rich. I can in my dreams recite 
the oration I have heard again and again under such 
circumstances. My life has been with the laboring 
man. Iam a laboring man myself. I have often, in 
their assemblies, heard the speech of the man who has 
been invited to address the labor union. The man 
gets up before the assembled company of honest 
laboring men and he begins by saying: ‘‘Oh, ye honest, 
industrious laboring men, who have furnished all the 
capital of the world, who have built all the palaces and 
constructed all the railroads and covered the ocean 
with her steamships. Oh, you laboring men! You 
are nothing but slaves; you are ground down in the 
dust by the capitalist who is gloating over you as he 
enjoys his beautiful estates and as he has his banks 
filled with gold, and every dollar he owns is coined out 
of the heart’s blood of the honest laboring man.” 
Now, that is a lie, and you know it is a lie; and yet 
that is the kind of speech that they are all the time 
hearing, representing the capitalists as wicked and the 
laboring men so enslaved. Why, how wrong it is! 
Let the man who loves his flag and believes in 
American principles endeavor with all his soul to bring 
the capitalist and the laboring man together until 
they stand side by side, and arm in arm, and work for 
the common good of humanity. 

He is an enemy to his country who sets capital 
against labor or labor against capital. 
Suppose I were to go down through this audience 
and ask you to introduce me to the great inventors 
who live here in Philadelphia. ‘‘The inventors of 
Philadelphia,’ you would say, ‘‘Why we don’t have 
any in Philadelphia. It is too slow to invent any- 
thing.”’ But you do have just as great inventors, and 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 425 


they are here in this audience, as ever invented a 
machine. But the probability is that the greatest 
inventor to benefit the world with his discovery is 
some person, perhaps some lady, who thinks she could 
not invent anything. Did you ever study the history 
of invention and see how strange it was that the man 
who made the greatest discovery did it without any 
previous idea that he was an inventor? Who are the 
great inventors? They are persons with plain, straight- 
forward common sense, who saw a need in the world 
and immediately applied themselves to supply that 
need. If you want to invent anything, don’t try to 
find it in the wheels in your head nor the wheels in 
your machine, but first find out what the people need, 
and then apply yourself to that need, and this leads 
to invention on the part of people you would not 
dream of before. The great mventors are simply 
great men; the greater the man the more simple the 
man; and the more simple a machine, the more 
valuable it is. Did you ever know a really great man? 
His ways are so simple, so common, so plain, that you 
think any one could do what he is doing. So it is with 
the great men the world over. If you know a really 
great man, a neighbor of yours, you can go right up 
_to him and say, “How are you, Jim, good morning, 
Sam.” Of course you:can, for they are always so 


_-simple. 
When I wrote the life of General Garfield, one of his 
“neighbors took me to his back door, and shouted, ‘‘ Jim, 
Jim, Jim!”’ and very soon “Jim” came to the door 
and General Garfield let me in—one of the grandest 
men of our century. The great men of the world are 
ever so. I was down in Virginia and went up to an 
educational institution and was directed to a man who 


was setting out a tree. I approached him and said, 


426 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


‘“Do you think it would be possible for me to see 
General Robert E. Lee, the President of the Univer- 
sity?” He said, ‘Sir, I am General Lee.’’ Of course, 
when you meet such a man, so noble a man as that, 
you will find him a simple, plain man. Greatness is 
: ..always just so modest and great inventions are simple. 

”""T’asked a class in school once who were the great 
inventors, and a little girl popped up and _ said 
¢ Columbus, Well, now, she was not so far wrong. 
Columbus bought a farm and he carried on that farm 
just as I carried on my father’s farm. He took a hoe 
and went out and sat down on arock. But Columbus, 
as he sat upon that shore and looked out upon the 
ocean, noticed that the ships, as they sailed away, 
sank deeper into the sea the farther they went. And 
since that time =gome other ‘‘Spanish ships” have 
sunk into the sea. ) But as Columbus noticed that the 
tops of the masts, “Uropped down out of sight, he said: 

“That is the way it is with this hoe handle; if you 
go around this hoe handle, the farther off you go the 
farther down you go. I can sail around to the East 
Indies.” How plain it all was. How simple the 
mind—majestic like the simplicity of a mountain in 
its greatness. Who are the great inventors? They 
are ever the simple, plain, everyday people who see 
the need and set about to supply it. 

I was once lecturing in North Carolina, and the 
cashier of the bank sat directly behind a lady who 
wore a very large hat. I said to that audience, “‘ Your 
wealth is too near to you; you are looking right over 
it.”” He whispered to his friend, ‘‘ Well, then, my 
wealth is in that hat.” A little later, as he wrote me, 
1 said, ‘‘Wherever there is a human need there is a 
greater fortune than a mine can furnish.” He caught 
my thought, and he drew up his plan for a better hat 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 427 


pin than was in the hat before him and the pin is now 
being manufactured. He was offered fifty-two thou- 
sand dollars for his patent. That man made his 
fortune before he got out of that hall. This is the 
whole question: Do you see_a need? 

I remember well a man up in my native hills, a poor 
man, who for twenty years was helped by the town in 
his poverty, who owned a wide-spreading maple tree 
that covered the poor man’s cottage like a benediction 
from on high. J remember that tree, for in the spring 
—there were some roguish boys around that neighbor- 
hood when I was young—in the spring of the year the 
man would put a bucket there and the spouts to catch 
the maple sap, and I remember where that bucket 
was; and when I was young the boys were, oh, so 
mean, that they went to that tree before that man 
had gotten out of bed in the morning, and after he 
had gone to bed at night, and drank up that sweet sap. 
I could swear they did it. He didn’t make a great 
deal of maple sugar from that tree. But one day 
he made the sugar so white and crystalline that the 
visitor did not believe it was maple sugar; thought 
maple sugar must be red or black. He said to the 
old man: ‘‘Why don’t you make it that way and 
sell it for confectionery?” The old man caught his 
thought and invented the “‘rock maple crystal,” and 
before that patent expired he had ninety thousand 
dollars and had built a beautiful palace on the site of 
that tree. After forty years owning that tree he 
awoke to find it had fortunes of money indeed in it. 
And many of us are right by the tree that has a fortune 
for us, and we own it, possess it, do what we will 
with it, but we do not learn its value because we do 
not see the human need, and in these discoveries and 
inventions this is one of the most romantic things 
of life. | 


428 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


I have received letters from all over the country and 
_ from England, where I have lectured, saying that 
they have discovered this and that, and one man out 
in Ohio took me through his great factories last spring, 
and said that they cost him $680,000, and, said he, 
“T was not worth a cent in the world-when I heard 
your lecture ‘Acres of Diamonds;’ but I made up my 
mind to stop right here and make my fortune here, 
and here it is.’ He showed me through his unmort- 
gaged possessions. And this is a continual experience 
now as I travel through the country, after these many 
years. I mention this incident, not to boast, but to 
show you that you can do the same if you will. 

Who are the great inventors? I remember a good 
illustration in a man who used to live in East Brook- 
field, Mass. He was a shoemaker, and he was out of 
work and he sat around the house until his wife told 
him ‘‘to go out doors.”’ And he did what every hus- 
band is compelled by law to do—he obeyed his wife. 
And he went out and sat down on an ash barrel in his 
back yard. Think of it! Stranded on an ash barrel 
and the enemy in possession of the house! As he sat 
on that ash barrel, he looked down into that little 
brook which ran through that back yard into the 
meadows, and he saw a little trout go flashing up the 
stream and hiding under the bank. I do not suppose 
he thought of Tennyson’s beautiful poem: 

“Chatter, chatter, as I flow, 
To join the brimming river, 


Men may come, and men may go, 
But I go on forever.”’ 


But as this man looked into the brook, he leaped off 
that ash barrel and managed to catch the trout with 
his fingers, and sent it to Worcester. They wrote 
back that they would give him a five dollar bill for 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 429, 


another such trout as that, not that it was worth that 
much, but he wished to help the poor man. So this 
shoemaker and his wife, now perfectly united, that 
five dollar bill in prospect, went out to get another 
trout. They went up the stream to its source and 
down to the brimming river, but not another trout 
could they find in the whole stream; and so they came 
home disconsolate and went to the minister. The 
minister didn’t know how trout grew, but he pointed 
the way. Said he, ‘‘Get Seth Green’s book, and that 
will give you the information you want.” They did 
so, and found all about the culture of trout. They 
found that a trout lays thirty-six hundred eggs every 
year and every trout gains a quarter of a pound every 
year, so that in four years a little trout will furnish 
four tons per annum to sell to the market at fifty 
cents a pound. When they found that, they said they 
didn’t believe any such story as that, but if they 
could get five dollars a piece they could make some- 
thing. And right in that same back yard with the 
coal sifter up stream and window screen down the 
stream, they began the culture of trout. They after- 
wards moved to the Hudson, and since then he has 
become the authority in the United States upon the 
raising of fish, and he has been next to the highest on 
the United States Fish Commission in Washington. 
My lesson is that man’s wealth was out*here in his 
back yard for twenty years, but he didn’t see it until 
his wife drove him out with a mop stick. 

I remember meeting personally a poor carpenter of 
Hingham, Massachusetts, who was out of work and in 
poverty. His wife also drove him out of doors. He 
sat down on the shore and whittled a soaked shingle 
into a wooden chain. His children quarreled over it in 
the evening, and while he was whittling a second one, 


> hia BGe 8 


mate 


say 


an 


430 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


a neighbor came along and said, ‘‘Why don’t you 
whittle toys if you can carve like that?” He said, 
“YT don’t know what to make!” There is the whole 
thing. His neighbor said to him: ‘Why don’t you 
ask your own children?” Said he, ‘‘What is the use 
of doing that? My children are different from other 
people’s children.”’ I used to see people like that 
when I taught school. The next morning when his 
boy came down the stairway, he said, “‘Sam, what 
do you want for a toy?’ ‘‘I want a wheel-barrow.” 
When his little girl came down, he asked her what she 
wanted, and she said. “I want a little doll’s wash- 
stand, a little doll’s carriage, a little doll’s umbrella,” 
and went on with a whole lot of things that would 
have taken his lifetime to supply. He consulted his 
own children right there in his own house and began 
to whittle out toys to please them. He began with 
his jack-knife, and made those unpainted Hingham 
toys. He is the richest man in the entire New England 
States, if Mr. Lawson is to be trusted in his statement 
concerning such things, and yet that man’s fortune 
was made by consulting his own children in his own 
house. You don’t need to go out of your own house 
to find out what to invent or what to make. I always 
talk too long on this subject. 

I, would like to meet the great men who are here 
tonight. The great men! We don’t have any great 


‘men im Philadelphia. Great men! You say that 


they all come from London, or San Francisco, or Rome, 
or Manayunk, or anywhere else but there—anywhere 
else but Philadelphia—and yet, in fact, there are just 
as great men in Philadelphia as in any city of its size. 
There are great men and women in this audience. 
Great men, I have said, are very simple men. Just as 
many great men here as are to be found anywhere. 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 431 


The greatest error in judging great men is that we 
think that they always hold an office. The world 
knows nothing of its greatest men. Who are the 
great men of the world? ‘The young man and young 
woman may well ask the question. It is not necessary 
that they should hold an office, and yet that is the 
popular idea. That is the idea we teach now in our 
high schools and common schools, that the great men 
of the world are those who hold some high office, and 
unless we change that very soon and do away with that 
prejudice, we are going to change to an empire. There 
is no question about it. We must teach that men are 
great only on their intrinsic value, and not on the 
position that they may incidentally happen to occupy. 
And yet, don’t blame the young men saying that they 
are going to be great when they get into some official 
position. I ask this audience again who of you are 
going to be great? Says a young man: ‘I am going 
to be great.” ‘‘When are you going to be great?” 
‘‘When I am elected to some political office.”’ Won’t 
you learn the lesson, young man; that it is prima facie 
evidence of littleness to hold public office under our 
form of government? Think of it. This is a govern- 
ment of the people, and by the people, and for the 
people, and not for the office-holder, and if the people 
in this country rule as they always should rule, an 
officeholder is only the servant of the people, and the 
Bible says that ‘“‘the servant cannot be greater than 
his master.”’ The Bible says that “he that is sent 
cannot be greater than him who sent him.” In this 
country the people are the masters, and the office- 
holders can never be greater than the people; they 
should be honest servants of the people, but they are 
not our greatest men. Young man, remember that 
you never heard of a great man holding any political 


432 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


office in this country unless he took that office at an 
expense to himself. It is a loss to every great man to 
take a public office in our country. Bear this in mind, 
young man, that you cannot be made great by a 
political election. | 

Another young man says, ‘‘I am going to be a great 
man in Philadelphia some time.’ ‘“‘Is that so? When 
are you going to be great?’ ‘‘When there comes 
another war! When we get into difficulty with Mexico, 
or England, or Russia, or Japan, or with Spain again 
over Cuba, or with New Jersey, I will march up to 
the cannon’s mouth, and amid the glistening bayonets 
I will tear down their flag from its staff, and I will 
come home with stars on my shoulders, and hold every 
office in the gift of the government, and I will be 
great.” ‘“‘No, you won’t! No, you won’t; that is 
no evidence of true greatness, young man.” But 
don’t blame that young man for thinking that way; 
that is the way he is taught in the high school. That 
is the way history is taught in college. He is taught 
that the men who held the office did all the fighting. 
' IT remember we had a Peace Jubilee here in Phila- 
delphia soon after the Spanish war. ‘Perhaps some 
of these visitors think we should not have had it until 
now in Philadelphia, and: as the great procession was 
going up Broad street T was told that the tally-ho 
coach stopped right in front of my house, and on the 
coach was Hobson, and all the people threw up their 
hats and swung their handkerchiefs, and shouted 
“Hurrah for Hobson!’ I would have yelled too, 
because he deserves much more of his country than 
he has ever received. But suppose I go into the 
high school tomorrow and ask, ‘“‘ Boys, who sunk the 
Merrimac?” If they answer me “Hobson,” they 
tell me seven-eighths of a lie—seven-eighths of a lie, 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS 433 


because there were eight men who sunk the Merrimac. 
The other seven men, by virtue of their position, 
were continually exposed to the Spanish fire, while 
Hobson, as an officer, might reasonably be behind the 
smoke-stack. Why, my friends, in this intelligent 
audience gathered here tonight I do not believe I 
could find a single person that can name the other 
seven men who were with Hobson. Why do we 
teach history in that way? We ought to teach that 
however humble the station a man may occupy, if 
he does his full duty in his place, he is just as much 
entitled to the American people’s honor as is a king 
upon a throne.! We do teach it as a mother did her 
little boy ii New York when he said, ‘‘Mamma, 
what great building is that?’ ‘‘That is General 
Grant’s tomb.”’ ‘‘Who was General Grant?” ‘He 
was the man who put down the rebellion.” Is that 
the way to teach history? 

Do you think we would have gained a victory if 
it had depended on General Grant alone? Oh, no. 
Then why is there a tomb on the Hudson at all? 
Why, not simply because General Grant was personally 
a great man himself, but that tomb is there because 
he was a representative man and represented two 
hundred thousand men who went down to death 
for their nation and many of them as great as General 
Grant. That is why that beautiful tomb stands 
on the heights over the Hudson. 

‘I remember an incident that will illustrate this, 
the only one that I can give tonight. I am ashamed 
of it, but I don’t dare leave it out. I close my eyes 
now; I look back through the years to 1863; I can 
see my native town in the Berkshire Hills, I can see 
that cattle-show ground filled with people; I can 
see the church there and the town hall crowded, and 


434 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


hear bands playing, and see flags flying and handker- 
chiefs streaming—well do I recall at this moment 
that day. The people had turned out to receive 
a company of soldiers, and that company came march- 
ing up on the Common. ‘They had served out one 
term in the Civil War and had re-enlisted, and they 
were being received by their native townsmen. I 
was but a boy, but I was captain of that company, 
puffed out with pride on that day—why, a cambric 
needle would have burst me all to pieces. As J 
marched on the Common at the head of my company, 
there was not a man more proud than I. We marched 
into the town hall and then they seated my soldiers 
down in the center of the house and I took my place 
down on the front seat, and then the town officers 
filed through the great throng of people, who stood 
close and packed in that little hall. They came up 
on the platform, formed a half circle around it, and 
the mayor of the town, the “chairman of the select- 
men” in New England, took his seat in the middle 
of that half circle. He was an old man, his hair was 
gray; he never held an office before in his life. He 
thought that an office was all he needed to be a truly 
great man, and when he came up he adjusted his 
powerful spectacles and glanced calmly around the 
audience with amazing dignity. Suddenly his eyes 
fell upon me, and then the good old man came right 
forward and invited me to come up on the stand 
with the town officers. Invited me up on the stand! 
No town officer ever took notice of me before I went 
to war. Now, I should not say that. One town 
officer was there who advised the teacher to ‘‘ whale” 
me, but I mean no “‘honorable mention.” So I was 
invited up on the stand with the town officers. I 
took my seat and let my sword fall on the floor, and 


ACRES OF DIAMONDS A35 


folded my arms across my breast and waited to be 
received. Napoleon the Fifth! Pride goeth before 
destruction and a fall. When I had gotten my seat 
and all became silent through the hall, the chairman 
of the selectmen arose and came forward with great 
dignity to the table, and we all supposed he would 
introduce the Congregational minister, who was the 
only orator in the town, and who would give the 


oration to the returning soldiers. But, friends, you ~ 


should have seen the surprise that ran over that 
audience when they discovered that this old farmer 
was going to deliver that oration himself. He had 
never made a speech in his life before, but he fell 
into the same error that others have fallen into, he 
seemed to think that the office would make him an 
orator. So he had written out a speech and walked 
up and down the pasture until he had learned it by 
heart and frightened the cattle, and he brought that 
manuscript with him, and, taking it from his pocket, 
he spread it carefully upon the table. Then he 
adjusted his spectacles to be sure that he might see 
it, and walked far back on the platform and then 
stepped forward like this. He must have studied the 
subject much, for he assumed an elocutionary attitude; 
he rested heavily upon his left heel, slightly advanced 
the right foot, threw back his shoulders, opened the 
organs of speech, and advanced his right hand at an 
angle of forty-five. As he stood in that elocutionary 
attitude this is just the way that speech went, this is 
it precisely. Some of my friends have asked me if 
I do not exaggerate it, but I could not exaggerate it. 
Impossible! This is the way it went; although I 
am not here for the story but the lesson that is back 
of it: 

‘‘Fellow citizens.’”’ As soon as he heard his voice, 

28 


436 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


his hand began to shake like that, his knees began to 
tremble, and then he shook all over. He coughed and 
choked and finally came around to look at his manu- 
script. Then he began again: ‘Fellow citizens: We 
—are—we are—we are—we are— Weare very happy 
—we are very happy—we are very happy—to welcome 
back to their native town these soldiers who have 
fought and bled—and come back again to their native 
town. We are especially—we are especially—we are 
especially—we are especially pleased to see with us 
today this young hero (that meant me)—this young 
hero who in imagination (friends, remember, he said 
‘imagination,’ for if he had not said that, I would 
not be egotistical enough to refer to it)—this young 
hero who, in imagination, we have seen leading his 
troops—leading—we have seen leading—we have seen 
leading his troops on to the deadly breach. We have 
seen his shining—his shining—we have seen his shining 
—we have seen his shining—his shining sword— 
flashing in the sunlight as he shouted to his troops, 
‘Come on!’ ” 

Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear! How little that good, 
old man knew about war. If he had known any- 
thing about war, he ought to have known what any 
soldier in this audience knows is true, that it is next 
to a crime for an officer of infantry ever in time of 
danger to go ahead of his men. I, with my shining 
sword flashing in the sunlight, shouting to my troops: 
‘“Come on.”’ I never did it. Do you suppose I would 
go ahead of my men to be shot in the front by the 
enemy and in the back by my own men? That is 
no place for an officer. The place for the officer is 
behind the private soldier in actual fighting. How 
often, as a staff officer, I rode down the line when 
the rebel cry and yell was coming out of the woods, 





ACRES OF DIAMONDS 437 


sweeping along over the fields, and shouted, ‘‘Officers 
to the rear! Officers to the rear!’ and then every 
officer goes behind the line of battle, and the higher 
the officer’s rank, the farther behind he goes. Not 
because he is any the less brave, but because the 
laws of war require that to be done. If the general 
came up on the front line and were killed you would 
lose your battle anyhow, because he has the plan of 
the battle in his brain, and must be kept in compara- 
tive safety. I, with my “shining sword flashing in 
the sunlight.” Ah! ‘There sat in the hall that day 
men who had given that boy their last hardtack, who 
had carried him on their backs through deep rivers. 
But some were not there; they had gone down to 
death for their country. The speaker mentioned 
them, but they were but little noticed, and yet they 
had gone down to death for their country, gone down 
for a cause they believed was right and still believe 
was right, though I grant to the other side the same 
that I ask for myself. Yet these men who had 
actually died for their country were little noticed, 
and the hero of the hour was this boy. Why was he 
the hero? Simply because that man fell into that 
same foolishness. This boy was an officer, and those 
were only private soldiers. I learned a lesson that 
I will never forget. Greatness consists not in holding : 
some office; greatness really consists in doing some: 
great deed with little means, in the accomplishment’ 
of vast purposes from the private ranks of life; that: 
is true greatness. He who can give to this people’ 
better streets, better homes, better schools, better: 
churches, more religion, more of happiness, more 
of God, he that can be a blessing to the community: 
in which he lives tonight will be great anywhere; 
but he who cannot be a blessing where he now lives 


438 ACRES OF DIAMONDS 


will neyer be great anywhere on the face of God’s 
/’ “We live in deeds, not years; in feeling, not 
in_figh res on a dial; in thoughts, not breaths; we 
should count time by heart throbs, in the cause of 
right.’”’ Bailey says: ‘‘He most lives who thinks 
most.” 

If you forget everything I have said to you, do not 
forget this, because it contains more in two lines than 
all I have said. Bailey says: ‘‘He most lives who 
thinks most, who feels the noblest, and who acts 
the best.” 





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